Browsers in Task Bar Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter WillyG
  • Start date Start date
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WillyG

I have a dial up internet connection so when I surf the web I usually
have multiple IE browsers running and let some pages load while I am
reading others.

On Windows 95 and 98, I can have 8 or 10 IE browsers open and switch
between them simply by clicking on the browser tab on the task bar at
the bottom of the screen.

On Windows XP however, once I open more than about 4 or 5 browsers,
their tabs disappear from the task bar and are replaced by a single
tab. Now to switch between different brower windows I must first click
on the tab, which brings up a list of browser windows, and then click
a second time on the browser window I want to view. I can't understand
why MS would change from the simple one click method from W95 and W98
to something that requires multiple clicks to do.

More importantly, is their anyway or setting to fix this? Thanks.
 
I have a dial up internet connection so when I surf the web I usually
have multiple IE browsers running and let some pages load while I am
reading others.

On Windows 95 and 98, I can have 8 or 10 IE browsers open and switch
between them simply by clicking on the browser tab on the task bar at
the bottom of the screen.

On Windows XP however, once I open more than about 4 or 5 browsers,
their tabs disappear from the task bar and are replaced by a single
tab. Now to switch between different brower windows I must first click
on the tab, which brings up a list of browser windows, and then click
a second time on the browser window I want to view. I can't understand
why MS would change from the simple one click method from W95 and W98
to something that requires multiple clicks to do.

More importantly, is their anyway or setting to fix this? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Right click on the Taskbar and select Properties. This will bring up
Taskbar and Start Menu Properties. On the Taskbar tab under the taskbar
appearance section remove the check from "Group similar taskbar buttons."
Apply your changes.

Side note, another way to switch between tasks is to use ALT+TAB on the
keyboard. Press and hold the ALT key and then hit the TAB key. This will
cycle you through the running windows applications. Release ALT after you
have TAB'd to the application window that you want.
--
Tom Porterfield
MS-MVP Windows
http://support.telop.org

Please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup only.
 
Tom Porterfield said:
Right click on the Taskbar and select Properties. This will bring up
Taskbar and Start Menu Properties. On the Taskbar tab under the
taskbar
appearance section remove the check from "Group similar taskbar
buttons."
Apply your changes.
Click to expand...


Alternately, rather than having multiple buttons on the taskbar for
multiple instances of IE, which crowds the buttons and squeezes them
down in size to make their titles useless because you cannot read them,
you could have all the buttons grouped together. That way, you click
once on the group button in the taskbar and see a roll-up list of all
the IE windows and can read their titles to know which one you want to
make the active window. The TweakUI powertoy for Windows XP makes it
easy to select how you want the buttons grouped (or not at all). Go to
Microsoft's web site to download it.
 
I have a dial up internet connection so when I surf the web I usually
have multiple IE browsers running and let some pages load while I am
reading others.

On Windows 95 and 98, I can have 8 or 10 IE browsers open and switch
between them simply by clicking on the browser tab on the task bar at
the bottom of the screen.

On Windows XP however, once I open more than about 4 or 5 browsers,
their tabs disappear from the task bar and are replaced by a single
tab. Now to switch between different brower windows I must first click
on the tab, which brings up a list of browser windows, and then click
a second time on the browser window I want to view. I can't understand
why MS would change from the simple one click method from W95 and W98
to something that requires multiple clicks to do.

More importantly, is their anyway or setting to fix this? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Right click on the Taskbar, select properties and uncheck group similar
taskbar items.

Consider a tabbed browser such as Avant, Maxthon (both use the Internet
Explorer rendering engine) or Firefox. I tried them all and personally love
Avant and can't imagine surfing without a tabbed browser.
 
Alternately, rather than having multiple buttons on the taskbar for
multiple instances of IE, which crowds the buttons and squeezes them
down in size to make their titles useless because you cannot read them,
Click to expand...

No, this is EXACTLY what I want. Even though squeezing them together
cuts off most of the title, it leaves the first few letters which is
normally enough to know what browser has what and can be activated
with a single click.
you could have all the buttons grouped together. That way, you click
once on the group button in the taskbar and see a roll-up list of all
the IE windows and can read their titles to know which one you want to
make the active window.
Click to expand...

And then have to click a second time to go to the wondow you want.
The TweakUI powertoy for Windows XP makes it
easy to select how you want the buttons grouped (or not at all). Go to
Microsoft's web site to download it.
Click to expand...

Cool , thanks.
 
Right click on the Taskbar and select Properties. This will bring up
Taskbar and Start Menu Properties. On the Taskbar tab under the taskbar
appearance section remove the check from "Group similar taskbar buttons."
Apply your changes.

Side note, another way to switch between tasks is to use ALT+TAB on the
keyboard. Press and hold the ALT key and then hit the TAB key. This will
cycle you through the running windows applications. Release ALT after you
have TAB'd to the application window that you want.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much. I will do this.
 
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