How to change Windows 7 system tray to be more like "classic" view?

Question

Sorry I didn't word that a little better, but it's hard to describe my problem. I just got a brand new laptop this morning (Hooray Black Friday), fresh off the line and installed with Windows 7. My old laptop had Vista and honestly, I can't say I had many complaints with it. Vista gets a lot of flack, but it fit in just fine with the type of things I do with my computer.

A fellow customer in the laptop camp-out line this morning explained to me that W7 was "Vista, but better." Looks basically the same, same features, just with the bugs and more annoying features removed. Sounds good. And he was mostly right, except for the one feature that is new and the subject of my question.

W7 squishes any applications you have open into tiny little icons in the tray (represented only by that program's logo), leaving most of the space unused. If you've got more than one internet window open, small side bars are added to the IE logo to indicate it thusly. I hate it. It's a pain in the ***. I want to be able to read my windows and click on them whenever I like, instead of hovering over one tiny icon and waiting for a menu to pop up and show me all the windows of that particular program I have open.

Please tell me there's some option to revert it back to the way it's been on most previous Windows operating systems. The applications spelled out, with their own individual bars in the tray.

Answer 1

You really cannot get it to be back like the old XP one - it was a decision the development lead made to reduce chances for issues. Problem with Vista is it tried to do too many things so that is why there was so many bugs.



Since you just got it, give it some time you will actually get used to it over time.



It is time to move forward.



============

I don't understand, if you don't want the features of the new O/S, then why install it? Why go to all the effort to make it look like the old systems. Why not just install XP 64 bit, put in 8 GB of memory, upgrade your processor.



Many of the benefits to Win7 are UI based like jump lists.



Antiques are for furniture, not computer systems.

Answer 2

Make the Windows 7 Taskbar Work More Like Windows XP or Vista

The single most visible change in Windows 7 is the new “dock style” taskbar, which shows icons instead of buttons, with all application windows combined within a single button. I’m quite certain that the very first question many people will have is “How do I turn it off?”, and this article will show you how.



Note that I’m not advocating going backwards, I’m a fan of the new style and think you should give it a chance… but we’re all about giving you options, so here we go…



For those that haven’t already read our coverage of the Windows 7 Beta, this is what the new taskbar looks like:







Changing the Windows 7 Taskbar to XP/Vista Style



To revert back to the older style, the first thing you’ll need to do is right-click on any open area of the taskbar and choose Properties from the menu.







From the Taskbar buttons drop-down menu, you’ll want to choose “Never combine”, which will make every window show up as a separate button on the taskbar, or you could choose “Combine when taskbar is full”, which does just like it says.







Now you should see the buttons show up with text labels like you are probably used to… but in the Windows 7 style.







If you chose the “Use small icons” checkbox in the properties screen, the taskbar will actually shrink down to look very similar to Vista.







The only problem is that the “pinned” icons are still sitting on the taskbar, which isn’t the same as Vista or XP, but you can easily remove all of them by right-clicking and choosing “Unpin this program from taskbar”.

Answer 3

Hi yes i dont like that either.



You want to right click on the task bar and choose properties from the pop-up menu.



this should open new window with the option about half way down the first tab which it will have opened on, saying task bar buttons, you can then choose combine when task bar is full or NEVER combine.



If Task bar icons are too small thats also on that tab



use small icons unticked.



also i think your saying trey when you mean task bar, thats what i ahve assumed, if you mean system trey and you dont want it to go into the bubble then you need to click customise option in the bubble and select:-



show icons and notifications on each one.



if you dont like aero glass and want the grey look of original windows then right click on desktop and choose personalize then choose classic theme.



lol spray and pray answers are hard work.. ;)

Answer 4

I wouldn't exactly call the icons tiny. I'm running Windows 7 right now and the icons in my tray are each a half-inch in diameter. Perhaps you have your screen resolution set incorrectly so eveything is tiny.

Not sure if you're referring to a personal preference or actual difficulty seeing the icons in your tray.

I know of no option to revert it back.

Answer 5

try the control panel