Why lock the taskbar?

[alishibaz]

Why lock (or unlock) the taskbar?

I'm curious about the option "Lock the Taskbar". It is found by right-clicking on the taskbar. I can see one effect and that is that if your taskbar has been setup in the standard way - at the bottom of the display - and it runs horizontally across the display, then, when the taskbar is unlocked, you can increase its size by placing the mouse pointer at the top of the taskbar and "stretching" it vertically just as you can do to any window.

You can also resize it to any rectangular shape and move it to a new position. It doesn't even need to be at the top, bottom, left side or right side of the display. It could be resized and moved like any window and left neat the center of the display. But, what is the value of doing that? Has anyone ever seen a good reason to do this?

How useful is it to take the taskbar and move it away from its original position like that and resize it as some other rectangular shape and use it in that way? What is the value of doing that? I've never seen anyone who used Windows 7 and found a good use for doing this.

Can anyone suggest a good reason for unlocking the taskbar and resizing it and moving it in this way? Also, can anyone suggest anything else useful that can be done after unlocking the taskbar?

I'm just curious. If there is something useful that can be done with the taskbar, I might like to try it. But please don't spend a whole lot of time preparing a response. I'm just curious to see if there is something good that anyone has discovered they can do with an unlocked taskbar.

 

[logicearth]

Just a personal preference to customize the size and placement of the taskbar that is all. Nothing really useful other then maybe being able to hold more icons.

 

[alishibaz]

Logicearth,

Thanks very much for your reply. That is kind of what I figured. However, I will leave this thread marked "unsolved" for a few days because I suspect that someone may have discovered some useful and/or practical benefit associated with this option. At any rate, let's see if anyone has found any any such use for this.

 

[gigagiggles]

When taskbar is

locked: some programs don't play nice with the OS and place the windows underneath the taskbar. With the taskbar at the bottom of the screen, the status bar would be blocked. With the taskbar at the top, the buttons would be blocked from being used. Unlocked, these problems can be circumvented.

unlocked: someone less dexterous with the mouse may end up resizing the taskbar instead of the window directly adjacent to it. Depending on the settings, that can be disastrous to the taskbar setup. A full-screen window with a locked taskbar can be resized, instead of resizing to an undesired previous state.