Before I get started with today’s information regarding the taskbar for you I have to apologize to those of you who had trouble accessing the DoubleClicks.info site last week. As I warned several weeks ago I moved to a different website hosting company (Bluehost.com). As expected, this caused a few days of the site being offline.
After it was returned to operational status later in the week something else “broke.” This also did not surprise me; however, I am sorry if you were one of the many people who emailed to tell me that they went to the site and it downloaded some strange file. Do not worry; it was a worthless “junk” file. It was nothing nefarious and you can delete it.
The site is now back up in full force and there may be a few more, non-obstructive changes coming so stay tuned. Also, the site is now secure (URL now uses “httpS“) so you can feel really safe now…per Google. I would like to thank them for adding more expense to the site.
Now on to the last taskbar article.
The taskbar settings window has only two things left. The first is, “Have a question?” and when “Get help” is clicked it opens a help screen but not much for you and me. This helps paid partners, etc. The other is “Make Windows better” where you can send feedback to MS such as suggestions for improvement or help solving a problem.
Now on to another Taskbar tip or two. While in the taskbar settings (right-click on an empty area of the taskbar and select, “Taskbar settings” as before) look at the menu on the left and choose “Colors.” You may have to click on an edge and widen the window if you do not see a menu. You may also go directly there by clicking the windows start button and typing “accent color” and select “Choose your accent color.”
Now you can get started creating your own Windows color environment. The first choice is to “Automatically pick an accent color from my background” picture of your desktop. I like this choice but you can choose many other colors too. The choice is up to you. The color you come up with will affect the items that you choose from including the Start menu, taskbar, action center and also the Title bars if you decide to add that one too. You may not see much difference at first but you will as you use your computer. It does nothing good or bad to your computer. This, appropriately per its name only changes the accent colors of many of your windows.
While there you should also give the “Transparency effects” a try. You will be able to see through your taskbar to the wallpaper area below it. This is a very minor “translucency” and it is not totally transparent.
Last week after a previous taskbar column someone wrote and asked for a way to make the taskbar totally transparent. And yes, it can be done a couple of ways. The first is through a registry edit. I am not comfortable sharing those with the general public. The reason is if you make a small error it could really mess up your computer.
The other way it can be made transparent is through several third-party apps. I have tried a couple and the effort you go through to make it work is not worth the outcome. So, we will not worry about those.
