Making better use of the taskbar when fewer programs are open Windows XP

The width of the buttons of running programs in the taskbar is restricted.

Even if only one program is open, its complete name is not visible. In such cases, you would like the button in the taskbar to be bigger. When several symbols have to share the space in the taskbar, Windows automatically reduces the size of the individual objects. With enough space however, a specific minimum value is used for these icons. With that, you can modify the size of the buttons in the registry. For that,

• Open the command ‘Run’ in the Windows start menu, enter ‘regedit’ and click ‘OK’.
• In the editor, navigate to the key ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics’.
• Search for the character string ‘MinWidth’ towards the right of the window.
• If the entry does not exist, create it with the command ‘Edit | New | Character String’.
• To edit, double-click on the new entry.
• In the following dialog, enter the desired minimum size in pixels.
• Do not get irritated with the minimum size, because Windows always reduces the actual size to the suitable size of the free space in the taskbar.
• The set value is used only if the free space is more than or equal to this value.
• For example, enter ‘1000’ and confirm with ‘OK.
• Thus Windows displays the buttons in as big a size as possible, space permitting.
• Finally, close the Registry Editor and restart the computer, so that the change takes effect.
• NOTE: Sometimes, this setting also works for the size of the symbol bar of other applications. For example, Paintshop Pro. In that case, setting a value of around 300 is a practical compromise.