BlameThePixel!

A little competition for you all. First, what is wrong with this screenshot and second, how do I fix it??
Spoiler (Click to Expand)

You have 2 new PM(s) - I never get PM's.

Er...oh yes! Your problem! I would think you just have to click&drag and make the Quick Task bar a little smaller. You could get rid of a few icons on that bar, I might add.

Your problem is that you have a billion icons on the taskbar, and don't turn on the Autohide feature of the tray area on either. Not to mention having a searchbox on your taskbar is an even more stupid way to waste your space.

There are several ways to fix this:

1. Leave everything as it is and enlarge the taskbar. Simplest but lamest solution.

2. Trim at least 2/3 of your quicklaunch, leaving only those necessities that your use real often and need quick access to, and place those icons on the desktop. Enable tray icon autohide, and you will have enough space. Yet another simple solution, however, not very comfortable, and still looks ugly.

3. Disable some tray icons(a lot of the ones you have are really unneeded anyway), enable tray autohide, remove Quicklaunch and the silly search bar completely. Download and install a dock program, create dock(s) at the top/sides of the screen, put the shortcuts you need on there and set them to autohide. Most complex, but efficient, cleanest and sexy-looking solution.

If you don't know of any dock programs, google 'em. You can start with ObjectDock, which is free and is what i use.

My guess is it's that when you minimize windows they disappear from the taskbar. I say this because a) that's basically what it says in your fx quicksearch and b) what ember said.

But yeh.. you're using the quicksearch that's in firefox. Do you ever seriously use a search on your taskbar? Does it take any less time than clikcing on firefox and typing it there?

I don't know what alot of those systray icons are, but I would also cut a few of them out. You have quicktime on that auto-tray mode. Do you have the need for quicktime to start up a few seconds quicker than if you didn't have it running? do you actually use quicktime more than once a month? (I don't). The tray thing is default because quicktime is generally an evil resource hog.

I see you're using a usb modem (i recognise the 4 squares) - ethernet is also less wasteful of resources than a usb modem and generally better. The problem being you need a modem that supports it and an ethernet card.

Another thing you don't need is java (the coffee cup) to be there on startup. Another waste of resources given that you're probably not going to use a java app on anything more than a bi-weekly basis... Again all it does is slightly improve loading times / give you access to the java console, which you don't need unless you're developing java anyway.

Also increase your resolution? You must be able to do more than 1024x768.

ps. You may find your windows in a list if you click on one of the icons by the search bar. As you may have gathered that's because you have no space left.

LOL.

Ok for a start this is my little brother's account. He messes around with his settings alot and has managed to kill off the minimize option from his taskbar. I have tried removing all toolbars from the tasbar but that just makes the whole bar disapear. i'd post more screenshots right now but I'm on my laptop.

And yes I do use the lil search box because a) its cute b)I can choose the search engine I want and c) it feels like I'm wasting a nice option by just searching using the address bar. Thats me I'm afraid. And well spotted.

My - or should i say my brother's - problem has still yet to be solved. Help.

You're using Firefox. Uninstall it and get Opera.

Actually right now Im using IE 7 and quite enjoying it.

The part of the taskbar that shows the minimized windows is probably turned off.

You spelled disappear wrong in the google search?

How do I turn it back on?

I dunno, maybe it's not turned off, maybe it's just really tiny and you can't see it because of that search box and everything.

The only thing wrong with this screenshot it the backround you're using in BTP.

I've tried removing all toolbars but the whole taskbar just disapears. I think I said that...