If you are using Windows 7, you might be wondering where are the good ol' "Show Desktop" shortcut and "Quick Launch" toolbar in Taskbar?
Actually "Show Desktop" shortcut has been moved to extreme end of Windows 7 Taskbar in form of a small rectangle and Microsoft has disabled "Quick Launch" toolbar intentionally because the same functionality is provided using the new PIN feature in Windows 7.
But you can enable "Quick Launch" toolbar back in Windows 7 and it'll also contain the good old "Show Desktop" shortcut using following simple steps:
1. Right-click on Taskbar and select "Toolbars -> New toolbar...".
2. It'll open Browse dialog box. Now paste following string in the "Folder:" text box:
%appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
Press Enter and click on "Select folder" button.
3. It'll immediately add Quick Launch toolbar to Taskbar.
4. Now right-click on Taskbar and uncheck "Lock the taskbar" option.
5. You'll see a placeholder to drag the Quick Launch toolbar.
6. Right-click on the toolbar placeholder and uncheck "Show Title" and "Show Text" options.
7. If you want to increase the icon size, right-click on the toolbar placeholder and enable "View -> Large Icons" option.
8. Drag-n-drop this toolbar to the left of Taskbar.
9. That's it. Now you have the good ol' "Quick Launch" toolbar and "Show Desktop" shortcut back in Windows 7 Taskbar.
This article was posted by VG in following section: Windows 7.
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Frolix
Cool. It worked! Still can't get that old blue icon to show up, though. What's the secret to that?
Paul
Thanks!
Jack
What is wrong with windows key + D key?
k
this is pointless for me as i like to have the toolbar on the top of the screen auto hide styles, while windows 7 apparently forces it to remain on the taskbar. talk about a step backwards
Vladimir
Thank you!
Oldsailor65
What a bunch of crap that MS did by doing away with the 'SHOW DESKTOP" icon. I don't know why in the hell they do things like this.
LY$Y
Is possibly to do it by registry or .bat script?
VG
^^ No.
blabla
If you are having trouble dragging the bar to the left try dragging it differently.
Click and drag the actual line or space itself (you'll get a different cursor) and force it to the left.
Took me a while to figure out...
sakthi
Good Job .