display text for taskbar icons?

Just installed windows 7 ultimate on a computer for a friend , this is now my 3rd windows 7 install and in all three installs i can't get the titles to display for icons in the taskbar, what gives?

I right click the taskbar, go to properties, then taskbar tab and click "never combine buttons", the titles still don't show up, is there something that I am missing? It showed the titles once but it seems like every time I do windows updates after that the titles wont show again.

If I hover the mouse cursor over a taskbar icon the text appears but i want the title to show all the time like one could do in xp.

I notice that if I choose to display links toolbar, then there is an option to show titles, i just dont get it.

thanks
TC