ASK A MICROSOFT-CERTIFIED WINDOWS TECHNICIAN.

Q. How can I make the taskbar smaller so it doesn’t take up so much room on the screen? I used to be able to do that, but now I can’t find the setting.

A. You can’t. We took that option away.

Q. How can I pin a file to the taskbar, like I used to be able to do?

A. You can’t. We took that option away.

Q. How can I make the clock in the taskbar display the seconds?

A. You can’t. We took that option away.

Q. How can I make searches from the taskbar open in my default browser instead of in Edge?

A. You can’t. We took that option away.

Q. Well, guess what, Microsoft! I found a neat little utility that restores all those capabilities. Now I can do all the things I want to do with my own computer.

A. Thank you for informing us! We just updated your operating system. Now you can’t, and the programmer who created the utility has died in a mysterious accident.

. 3 comments.

Comments

  1. Maypo says:
    January 2, 2025 at 7:45 am

    There was a time, not long ago, where this would be satire. I miss those days.

    Reply
  2. Martin The Mess says:
    January 3, 2025 at 5:26 am

    The start button and search box used to be almost all the way over to the left edge of the taskbar. Now it’s about 35% of the way across from the left edge, and can’t seem to be moved. I imagine on some monitors, the frame was cutting off easy view of the start button from some angles, so maybe moving it over a bit was due, but this seems to leave an awful lot of screen real estate completely unused and unusable. I can imagine running out of room to the right of the search box for the icons of pinned applications and pinned notification/status icons for things like battery status and wifi connection status. But nothing seems to use the space to the left.

    But what really irks me is that the search box used to be at least somewhat useful for searching for files or applications that the user might forget which folder he stuck them in, by being a search bar that searched your own computer and any attached storage drives. But now it seems to only be a Bing web search bar, and you’ve gotta open the File Explorer application if you want to search your hard drive for a misplaced image or text file or whatever. Personally, I’d rather open a web browser and search using Google or something for online searches and leave the taskbar search box for local file searches only.

    Reply
  3. KevinT says:
    January 3, 2025 at 8:52 am

    All those options had to be removed in order to reinstate the 640K barrier.

    Reply

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