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Taskbar Grouping in Win98


Prozactive

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Does anyone know a utility or way to make Windows 98 group similar taskbar buttons like Windows XP? That is probably the main (only?) thing I like about WinXP and my biggest gripe about Win98. When I have lots of tasks/apps open, Win98 continues to add buttons to the taskbar and shrinking their width to the point where I can't read their labels anymore. It's extremely aggravating. I love the way WinXP groups similar tasks in one button (e.g., multiple Notepad windows) where you can click the single button and select the specific window you want. I've searched this forum and Googled it but haven't been able to find any utility or method for doing it in Win98 so I thought I'd ask here.

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Perhaps not really an answer to your query but hook99, which you would need to run as a background task like I do, has an option to hide captions and keep only the icon which makes the taskbar much more manageable IMO. In addition to hook99 I use a small app called tasklist which I launch with a mouse gesture (using stroke-it as a background app) which pops under the mouse cursor a menu of the running tasks, clicking on any task brings it to front. With this I never need to use the taskbar.

And btw, there are very cool tabbed text editors such as Akelpad out there.

Edited by loblo
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Does anyone know a utility or way to make Windows 98 group similar taskbar buttons like Windows XP? That is probably the main (only?) thing I like about WinXP and my biggest gripe about Win98. When I have lots of tasks/apps open, Win98 continues to add buttons to the taskbar and shrinking their width to the point where I can't read their labels anymore. It's extremely aggravating. I love the way WinXP groups similar tasks in one button (e.g., multiple Notepad windows) where you can click the single button and select the specific window you want. I've searched this forum and Googled it but haven't been able to find any utility or method for doing it in Win98 so I thought I'd ask here.

Taskbar grouping has to be one of the top 5 things I HATE most about Windows XP and up :lol:

I would have thought something like this would have already been included in the Revolutions Pack if it is possible to do so... :unsure:

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Me too. Why having multi-tab apps if you still need taskbar grouping. On W7 I always mix multi-tab and taskbar groups, it's horrible.

Yet I can understand the need for a more advanced, may togglable, grouping/hiding of numerous windows.

We should not wish for emulating irritating function of W7/Vista/XP, we must find something better. That's why we use w9x, after all, isn't it?

---------

Edited by Fredledingue
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Well, to each his own. Obviously we all have different tastes and preferences, but as I stated earlier, the taskbar grouping feature in WinXP is by far the thing I like the most and I would absolutely love to have it in Win98. Unfortunately, it's apparently not an easy feature to add as it may be embedded in the core OS programming, so to speak. BTW, in my web searches I've seen numerous discussions of some registry changes that will disable taskbar grouping in WinXP if that's your preference.

And thanks loblo for your feedback but that doesn't look like it'll help solve the crowded illegible Win98 taskbar issue for me.

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Well, to each his own. Obviously we all have different tastes and preferences,...

...I've seen numerous discussions of some registry changes that will disable taskbar grouping in WinXP if that's your preference.

Agreed, I did not mean that you shouldn't be able to have that feature if you want it. :thumbup

My point was that it must not be possible or "easy" given the fact that it has not already been added to the Revolutions Pack.

Taskbar grouping in XP and up can simply be turned off in the taskbar properties, this along with setting ALL of the interface back to "Classic" style is the first thing I do when I sit down at an XP & up machine. :angel

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We're in full concurrence then. One of the first things I always do too is to set WinXP to the Classic start menu/theme. I can't stand its default cartoonish look and feel with the rounded buttons, etc. I don't disable taskbar grouping of course so I have no idea how to do that. :)

Edited by Prozactive
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I also prefer Windows classic interface to the colourful stuff :o but taskbar grouping is one of these functions that I find quite useful, especially when I have lots of folders open at the same time.

Someone wrote an application to add this function to Win2k (tbmod2k). It probably won't work in 9x but can someone at least try to run it?

Edited by tomasz86
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