Make the Taskbar "Never combine, but HIDE labels"

I'm not completely sure if this is the right section of the forums to post in, but seeing as i haven't seen this method of taskbar "customization" mentioned anywhere, or in any screen shots, i figured i would go ahead and post.

As much as i like the new Windows 7 taskbar (which is pretty amazing), I thought there had to be a better way to still utilize the nice icons, but not have to deal with the ugly rectangular labels that were present in past versions of windows (they look kind of fat on the new taskbar, and turning on small icons makes the start orb jut out oddly :huh.

But i found a way!
All that needs to be done is add a string called “MinWidth” to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics” and set to 54 then restart, and bada-bing badda-boom, the "Golden" Taskbar.

Taskbar on the left

That's amazing, and I've got it to work for small icons using 38 instead of 54. Now I'd like to move my taskbar up to the left of the screen, but still hide the labels. Obviously this doesn't work with 38 or 54 because the taskbar is vertical rather than horizontal. Can you suggest anything I could try?

Anyone know how to do this with a vertical taskbar?

Let me clarify.. It does work if the taskbar is vertical, but only if it is dragged to its lowest form. Is it possible to hide labels and never combine, regardless of vertical taskbar width?

Just spotted this, just what I want as well - thanks

selectively hide labels?

is there a way to hide labels only for _some_ applications?

this is great man thanks

Software that does it !!

I agree that it would be really useful to combine / uncombine in a custom way for some icon ...


Here's a solution : 7+ Taskbar Tweaker - RaMMicHaeL's home page

choose DON'T COMBINE GROUP BUTTONS, it'll do the same as the registry hack MINWIDTH .... but you will also keep the label in the "icons peek"


Have fun !