Vertical Taskbar with Multiple Columns - WHERE and HOW???

This answer doesn't address xyn19's question: "Windows XP and Vista always supported multiple columns of icons on a vertical taskbar."

I also use a vertical taskbar and multiple monitors, and have the same question, however this question applies just as well to horizontal taskbars too. None of the videos referenced are irrelevant to this issue.

Although Windows 7 allows toolbars like 'links' or 'desktop' to display in multiple columns (when vertical) or rows (when horizontal) the taskbar itself does not display simultaneously all pinned programs. Instead the user is given a scrollbar to flip through the overflow, even with small icons set on a stretched out taskbar on a huge monitor.

I have created a workaround by using a custom toolbar, but this doesn't have the taskbar functionality and is just a mocked up quicklaunch.

If this still isn't clear take a look at the picture labeled 'C' on this webpage: 

http://blog.tarunaggrawal.com/2010/01/vertical-taskbar-the-yet-again-neglected-child-of-windows-7/

Thanks for your attention!

- Windows 7 fan

On further experimentation I see that this issue does not apply to horizontal taskbars, only to vertical taskbars.

- Windows 7 fan

How about this...I've been researching for a few days with no luck. It's a mess, but vertical columns can be created if you make a folder, add it as a toolbar, smallsize the icons if you want to. If you have a few, you can drag them to the right and then place them in vertical columns. Maybe someone more creative than me can make it look good, but at least there's possibly a way....

Check out this link for a picture: http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/887856-narrowthin-vertical-taskbar-in-windows-7/page__gopid__592467816&#entry592467816

I cleaned it up a bit:

I moved the main taskbar to the right column.

I moved a folder toolbar called Office 2007 with large fonts to the far left top.

I moved a folder toolbar called fun to the bottom and opened it with small icons and text so I could see three common folders I need.

I moved a folder toolbar called Technology to the bottom, and left the quicklaunch arrow there so it opens as you can see.

How does it look?

http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/887856-narrowthin-vertical-taskbar-in-windows-7/page__gopid__592467816&#entry592467816

These boilerplate responses from these moderators are worthless. I wish they would not even reply, or at the very least not checkbox the reply as if it's a solution--which it isn't. 

I know exactly what you're describing, and I hate it as well. The old XP taskbar would collapse into more than one columns when the vertical space filled up.  Now, with the "improved" taskbar, it goes to a new page that you access with a scrollbar.  Not only that, the taskbar shows the second page by default.

Short answer: you can't fix this.  Microsoft removed the feature completely, thinking that collapsing tasks into drop-downs, or using Aero Peek is somehow a usable replacement.  It's not.  You'll no doubt receive many useless responses like "oh, get used to it" or "why would you want that when the new taskbar is so useful!" Obviously, some of these people would be content to use Windows 7 Starter Edition where only three tasks can run at a time.

What did I have to do to tolerate this taskbar?  I had to hack a special theme that allowed me to have shorter tasks so that I could at least fit more than 50 or so tasks on a single column before spawning a horizontal taskbar.  The current themes must have been made for old people or for touch screens so you could press the task with a fat thumb.  The tasks are like 50 pixels tall and you can only fit maybe 20 in a 1200px tall screen. You have to get uxCore to allow custom themes, get a program called VistaStyleBuilder, and then fix the taskbar's vertical margins:

Windows Style Builder:
    Windows 7 -> Taskbar & Tray Notify
        Basic
            Taskbar Vertical
                TaskItemButton (top-link)
                    ContentMargins:Margins --> 10,10,1,1 (from 7,7, ..)

Replace the aero.msstyles with your new one.

The problem is not that you love Windows 7 too little, but that you love Aero too much.

At least some of the problems with vertical taskbars (including re-sizing on events such as Switch User) can be resolved by simply switching to Windows Classic mode.

Windows Classic is squirreled away at the bottom of the personalization window, and the advanced appearance settings are harder to find (under "color" of all things), but formy use case for vertical taskbars, which is to use the desktop toolbaron the taskbar and show three columns of desktop icons at the bottom and my program captions above, Windows Classic mode still works in at least Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 7 Home Premium.

I doubt that every feature mentioned in this thread is still present in the classic taskbar, but it's what I use on every Windows 7 machine (until Microsoft does an overhaul on Aero).

I have also purchased Classic Start Menu to replace other functionality (SevenClassicStart is another one).

Too bad that Microsoft went on a feature removal binge with Windows 7 (and Visual Studio 2010).  At least some of this happened when things were converted from c++ to c#.