Floating Toolbar for Windows 7
Dear Computer Lady,
Seems like MSN decided to remove the ability for an individual to add toolbars as you could in XP & Vista. Know of any good program or way to add the Toolbars back. I used to have one on the left that had my Desktop icons like Word, Excel etc. It would disappear when I moved away.
I have been a fan for many years and have recommended you too many others.
Great Job. Gary
Dear Gary,
I have always used customized toolbars along the top and sometimes side of my desktop to hold shortcuts to my most frequently used programs. I find it much simpler than searching through the programs on my start menu.
When I first tried Windows 7, I was very disappointed to find that I could no longer create these custom toolbars using only Windows. I started to look around for a substitute, and at first I found only programs that work in 32-bit versions of Windows, but not the 64-bit version (which is what I am using).
I finally found a nice little program named Nexus that does exactly what I wanted it to do, and provides some nice customization tools as well. Nexus is a dock for windows. It provides fast access to my most frequently used programs. I can float the dock anywhere on my screen, and add as many programs as I want.
Nexus is part of Winstep Extreme. You can download a trial using this link:
For more information on the program, you can use this link:
If you want to install only Nexus, just click on the menu item on the left of the web page that says, Nexus.
Elizabeth
Egirl
Rather than having to add a program to add a toolbar, you can create a quicklaunch toolbar in Windows 7 – see the directions at this site:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/add-the-quick-launch-bar-to-the-taskbar-in-windows-7/
The reasons I use it are as follows:
1. For my computer at work, if you want to download a program, someone from the IT area has to come down and download the program. This lets you add the quicklaunch toolbar by yourself.
2. Also, for years I had been customizing the Start menu with my different programs/files so it was easier to access certain frequently used programs/documents. this worked out fine unless we got certain computer upgrades that would “remove” the added files on the Start menu, or if a person’s computer “fried” and the start menu items that were added would no longer be there. So, one day, since I do have a lot of programs/documents that I liked to access with my Start menu, I went into the Start menu and made a copy of all the links I had added and created my own special folder with links to all the frequently used programs/documents. This way, even if my computer fried, since the file was saved on the network, I would still be able to recreate a list of all the additional programs I had.
Also – I periodically take screenshots of my desktop, so if and when my computer fries again, then I will have a list of the special programs that I have that will need to be re-installed on a new computer.
-Eileen
Then, after creating the quicklaunch toolbar, I was able to drag and drop the copy of my “start” folder onto the quick launch toolbar.
Nat
I had the same problem with Win7. I found a freeware program that sets up a toolbar at the screen edge. It is called Advanced Program Launcher and is available at http://www.alentum.com/alaunch/ It works great on my 64 bit Windows 7 computer.
Nat