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In Windows XP you could collapse the Quick Launch menu (next to the Start button) on the Task Bar so that instead of seeing, for example, 5 icons, you'd just get one of them and a drop down (up?) arrow to access the others via a menu.

In Windows 7 it seems this has been replaced with "pin to task bar" but then you get those Pinned Icons on the task-bar and (I) can't distinguish b/t Pinned and Running tasks. Also, those icons eat up a lot of screen real estate.

Is it possible to collapse the pinned tasks?

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up vote 2 down vote accepted

Create a folder somewhere on your computer containing shortcuts to the programs you want. If you right click on the taskbar, go to toolbars -> New Toolbar.. You can then select the folder you created.

This folder will then display on the taskbar in a collapsed fashion as you described. Click the little double >> to view the contents of the new folder from your taskbar.

Of course you don't have to put only shortcuts, you can put any files you like.

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FYI - it took a few minutes (after I added the folder) for the >> to show up on the task bar. –  Clay Nichols Feb 18 '10 at 2:39
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Oh I think you've got the taskbar confused here, the pin to taskbar apps are actually the same as the quicklaunch buttons in both vista and xp, however in here, those apps are actually just shortcuts, and because they are stacked, it is stacked over the apps, from what I see there's no possible way to change it.

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Dude, in Win7, when a pinned application is not running, it just appears as an icon on the taskbar, but when its running it appears as highlighted icon. so, you can very much distinguish it.

If you are having too much icons needed pinned but dont have enough space on the taskbar, then try using small icons or, copy all of those icons to a folder and then add a new toolbar of that folder on the taskbar. That way, you'll get your icons grouped and can us them with pop up list..

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