Vista Taskbar - Color & Icon Size

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 5 Jan 2009 4:35 pm

For some strange reason today, my taskbar changed color and the icons diminished quite a bit. I'm running Vista Home Premium.

You can right-click on open desktop and click on PERSONALIZE. Under the 1st heading it says: Window Color and Appearance.
It says you can change the color of the TASKBAR in here.

You can change colors on many things in there, but I couldn't find where to change the Taskbar color.

And I also have no clue how to increase the icon sizes in the Taskbar, as well.

I know about UNLOCKING the Taskbar so you can increase it's width using the double arrow. I can do that, but I figured the icons would increase in size along with the Taskbar width; but NOPE - not to be.

Please Help, all.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 7 Jan 2009 7:09 am

Chip:

I don't have it figured out entirely either and I am not particularly amused by Vista, but here are a couple of ideas.

Go to personalize/ window color and appearance.

In the "color scheme" dropdown you will see several choices. My taskbard was black, but when i changed the dropdown to "windows classic", it turned gray.

There are a bunch of color settings available in the "advanced" choice from that same window, and also a bunch more dropdowns from the "item" choice in the advanced area, but i haven't made sense of it yet. There are at least 15 choices from the "item" dropdown, but I don't know which one might apply to the taskbar.

Notice that there is a "size" choice next to the item dropdown. It is grayed out normally, but will become choosable if you select the right choice from the item dropdown.

Have fun.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 7 Jan 2009 1:40 pm

Thanks Mitch,

Yeah, I just went back to the Zone of No Return and tried on a few things. Only to have my desktop go from a solid darkish blue (very nice) to BLACK. And all my nice beigeish background colors went WHITE.

I tried to do an UNDO, but failed, and finally figured the quickest remedy would be to RESTORE back to yeasterday. Which I wound up doing.

As you mentioned, nothing is clearly explained in that No-Mans' -Land. It's click on something, kneel and pray, hope for the best.

I know colors and font sizes and images and all of this may seem trivial to some.

But my eyesight is getting worse by the year, and anything I can do to make this PC more enjoyable, I will certainly do.
And changing color schemes and backgrounds and fonts and font sizes, from time to time, keeps the PC interesting from a visual standpoint. ie - keeps it from getting, BORING

John Cipriano · Post by **John Cipriano** » 9 Jan 2009 10:31 pm

Chip, did you have it set to the default theme? If so, you can restore fonts and colors and such by just picking a theme.

I don't use Vista yet so I don't know exactly where it is but I think this website describes it (first bulleted list):

http://www.myvistathemes.com/articles/h ... ows-vista/

Also, maybe you know this but if you want to make text large system-wide without worrying about individual font sizes, go to control panel, and in the search box on the top right, type in "adjust font size" and hit enter. You can bump it up to 120 or put in your own number. What this does is, instead of say, picking 12pt Arial instead of 10pt Arial, it makes 10pt Arial bigger on the screen. There are advantages and disadvantages to doing it this way, but it's worth playing with if it can prevent some eye strain.

Chip Fossa · Post by **Chip Fossa** » 10 Jan 2009 12:09 pm

Thanks, too, John,

When I go into that Personalize realm, I choose a few things, but I never bother to make that particular choice a DEFAULT or assign a name to it.

I read through your link, which was informative, but I'll have to read it over again.I ususally don't grab everything on the first run through.
I may get around to tinkering with these things later on, but right now, I just want some headache-free time.

Thanks again