Solved Windows 7 taskbar

[DaleM]

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS.

For many years I could pin specific Excel and Word documents to my taskbar. I could also have any pinned items show up on two rows by adjusting the taksbar to two row high. When the taskbar was not locked, there was a 'divider' between the pinned items area and the rest of the rest of the taskbar that allowed me to enlarge or reduce the pinned items area; locking the taskbar again and that feature would disappear normally.

A few days ago I noticed all of my document shortcuts were missing and I no long have the ability to adjust the pinned items area and cannot pin individual files from the likes of Excel, Word, or any other program. When pinning a specific Excel file for example, Excel itself gets pinned. Most of the actual programs shortcuts on the taskbar were not removed but some others were.

No new software has been installed and no radical Windows 7 updates. I'm lost. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Megahertz07]

Lets do the basic
Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
chkdsk c: /f
It will say your disk is in use and ask if you want to schedule to next start = yes
Restart
Pay attention on the results, specially bad blocks, bad clusters, bad sectors etc

Back to Windows, open a CMD window as administrator and type:
sfc /scannow

If it finds any corrupted files, fixing or not, reboot and run again

 

[DaleM]

Chkdsk showed no issues. SFC reports corrupt files but could not fix them. Tried the sequence twice with the same results. I have no idea what the log file is telling me.

I tried attaching the log file (CBS.log) but it failed to upload since it's a .log file.

 

[Megahertz07]

Do you have a Win 7 SP1 x64 iso or disk to do a Repair install?

 

[DaleM]

I have a repair disc and a recovery disc I made a few years ago. I'll clone my drive then try the repair disc first to see what happens. If no joy I'll try the recovery disc.

 

[Megahertz07]

I recommend you do a data backup before you begin.

A repair install will reinstall Win 7, keeping your data and programs. You will need to install all updates. I recommend to use Single file with all updates - Simplix

 

[DaleM]

The repair disc didn't appear to have anything that would help. I can't remember now just what the options were but going back to a restore point seemed the most logical and I can do that from within Windows 7 itself.

Somewhere there has to be a registry point for that grab-bar, allow document shortcuts on the taskbar, and stacking of the shortcuts in a separate area from the taskbar itself just like the notification area. I've searched for several hours trying to find an answer and all I get are how to lock and unlock the toolbar.

 

[Megahertz07]

It's not only a register tweak.
SFC fond corrupted files and were unable to fix them.
I can give you a link to a Win 7 SP1 (US) that I had added some drivers. If you wish, I can give you a link so you can download and do a Repair install with it.

HeiDoc.net still has the links to download Win 7 from Dell servers.
Microsoft Windows and Office ISO Download Tool

 

[file3456]

Read the link about doing a repair install in post #4.

 

[DaleM]

Read my reply in post #7. the repair disc didn't have anything useful that I could see.

- - - Updated - - -

This is how my taskbar used to be. My shortcuts were in an area to the left of a divider bar (divider bar disappears when taskbar was locked) and I could drag the divider bar to increase the shortcut area size. The area to the right (and up to the notifications) were programs I currently had open. I could pin individual document shortcuts to this area as well, now when I try to pin an individual document to the taskbar, the program's source gets pinned - example if I try to pin an individual Excel or Word file, only Excel or Word itself is pinned, not the individual document.

I can still make the taskbar two, three, or however many rows high.

- - - Updated - - -

I found my solution - it's called a "Quck Launch" toolbar which Widnows 7 (and *) apparently have hidden but after hours of searching I found it.