Date: June 18, 2000

Re: Creating custom Tool Bars in Windows

For: Educomp Staff

Filename: Custom Toolbars

To create a custom toolbar in Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP do the following:

Note: This feature is built-in to Windows 98, 2000 and XP. If you have Windows 95/NT you need to have installed Internet Explorer with the Desktop Update. This update is part of Internet Explorer 4. With Windows NT 4.0 you must install IE401 with the desktop update before installing IE5.

1. Determine which folder you want to use to store the shortcuts for your custom toolbar. I recommend using the same folder for all workstations. For Win95/98, use the folder C:\Windows\Launcher. For Windows 2000/XP, use the folder C:\Documents and Settings\username\Launcher, where username isyou’re your login name. If you had an existing toolbar that was accidentally deleted, chances are that the location of this toolbar is one of the above folders. Using Windows Explorer, you can check to see if this folder exists. If not, create it.

2. Second, close or minimize any open programs so you can see the desktop. Point to an empty space on the task bar (gray bar at the bottom of the screen) and right-click. A pop-up menu will appear - choose Toolbars – New Toolbar. Locate the Launcher folder created above (My Computer – Hard Drive C: , etc. Once you see the Launcher folder, highlight it and click on OK.

3. The new toolbar will be placed in the middle of the task bar. Locate the vertical gray bar on the left side of the toolbar (left of the title Launcher). This is the called the control strip for the new toolbar. If you want to move the toolbar, click on this control strip and drag the new toolbar to a new location and release the mouse button.

Toolbar behavior and locations

• If you drag the toolbar to the center of the desktop, it will “float” in the center of the desktop. When the toolbar is floating, you can move it around using the blue title bar.
• If you drag the toolbar all the way to the right side of the screen, it will “dock” on the right side of the screen. To dock the toolbar, click on the toolbar’s control strip or blue title bar and drag it all the way to the right side of the screen (until it changes shape) and release the mouse button.
  Once docked, right-click on the tool bar and remove the check marks for “Show text” and Show title.” You may also change the size of the icons by right-clicking and choosing View – Large or View – small.
• You may notice the task bar has changed at the bottom of the screen. There is another toolbar (on the task bar) called “Quick Launch” which is normally just to the right of the Start button. When you make changes to the toolbars, the Quick Launch tool bar gets “stretched out.” This causes the task bar (where your programs are listed) to shrink in size. To adjust the task bar to its normal size, click on its control strip (vertical gray bar) and drag it over to the left.
  Note: If you drag this control strip all the way to the left, the position of the Quick Launch tool bar and the task bar will flip flop. You can flip-flop these two as many times as you want.