How to Change the Windows 7 Taskbar Button Length or Width Size

Windows 7 Taskbar can be set to display on program icons only with all additional tabs or icons combine into stack, or as a buttons with application icon and label with each window has its own button on the Taskbar. By default, the length or width of the button or icon on Taskbar is fixed, and Windows 7 only allows user to change the size of Taskbar pinned icons and buttons together with font to standard or smaller.

With the following registry trick, user can also change or adjust the width, or length of the buttons appear on the Windows 7 Taskbar. The hack has been used to simulate “not combine or stack but hide labels” option to limit the width of buttons with label so that label (text after the icon on button which normally takes the form of window’s title) is hidden and the button is left with just the icon.

How to Adjust Button Length or Width Size in Windows 7 Taskbar

1. Run Registry Editor (RegEdit).
2. Navigate to the following registry key:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

3. Right click on a blank space on the right pane, select New, then String Value. Name the new string value as MinWidth.

   Note: If “MinWidth” already exists, skip this step.

4. Double click on “MinWidth”, and change the value data according to the preferred size. By default, Windows 7 has the following MinWidth value (estimated), when MinWidth is not defined or not created:

   Button with standard or normal icons: 56
   Button with small icons: 40

   

5. Restart the computer, or log off and log on again.

Note: Above change button width trick only work when Taskbar is set to display “button”, which mean it doesn’t work is Taskbar buttons’ behavior is set to “Always combine, hide labels”, where Windows 7 will always use it default size for icon-only button. To change the setting, follow these steps:

1. Right click on Taskbar, and select Properties.
2. Set the Taskbar buttons setting to Never combine (each window has its own icon, and icons span to more rows in Taskbar when there is too many of them), or Combine when taskbar is full (all icons of same application or program will collapse and stack to one when Taskbar no longer able to accommodate additional icon).

To revert and change back to default Taskbar button size of Windows 7, just delete the MinWidth registry value data.

Check out more Windows 7 tips and tricks with usage guides.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 31st, 2009 at 2:26 am and is filed under Windows 7. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.