Windows 7 QuickLaunch: "The Rumors of My Death…"

Yesterday, whilst frustrated, I incorrectly alluded to the fact that the "pinning" behaviour in the Windows 7 taskbar completely replaces the QuickLaunch bar we’ve all grown to love. Well, it turns out I was wrong: QuickLaunch lives on!

I picked up this nifty little trick on a forum while searching for company in my misery over the "Windows 7 QuickLaunch". Apparently, "Toolbars" still exist in full force under Windows 7, and if you’ve ever messed with them before, you’ll know QuickLaunch was always just one of those folders. The simple way to resurrect the QuickLaunch bar is to:

1. Right click on the taskbar and go to Toolbars
2. Click "New Toolbar…"
3. Navigate to "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch"
4. Select that directory.

You technically don’t even need to use that specific directory— any empty directory will do (you can make one in a safe place).

It will show up on the right by default, but you can right click on the taskbar again and unlock the taskbar to move it back to the left.

Voila, ze Quick Launch, she lives!

This means I can completely avoid using the horribly unintuitive pinned icon behaviour that is supposedly "superior". Better yet, by using the old QuickLaunch, I even get back all that wasted horizontal space that comes with the pinned icons!