Add “Never Combine, Hide Labels” to the Win 7 Taskbar
Posted on 26. Aug, 2009 by Mike Halsey in guides and how to's
Yes! It is possible, I was stunned when I received a message today from someone who said that it had indeed been done.
And here’s the proof. In fact the hack is nothing more than a simple registry fix.
Add a string called “MinWidth” to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics” and set to 54 then restart.
You’ll need to set your taskbar to the “Never Combine” option, but now the program names will always be hidden.
This is a feature that a great many people, myself included, have been calling for ever since the first beta of Windows 7 arrived. People found the way the new Taskbar handled multiple instances of programs awkward, especially when wanting to switch between them. This hack proves just how easy it would have been for Microsoft to give the users what they wanted.
it with others, or 
Never Combine, Hide Labels In Win7 TaskBar - Windows 7 Center Forums
Aug 27th, 2009
[...] PanelDesktopWindowMetrics
stjaernan
Sep 5th, 2009
this is a very neat tweak, but how did you add the space between the taskbar icons and the bottom of the screen?
Mike Halsey
Sep 5th, 2009
The gap at the bottom of the taskbar is an annoying side-effect of adding a custom toolbar
http://www.thelongclimb.com/?p=739
stjaernan
Sep 5th, 2009
I think it looks great D:
stjaernan
Sep 5th, 2009
looks like that side-effect doesnt show on the rtm
Mike Halsey
Sep 5th, 2009
After you’ve added the custom toolber, set it to show large icons. Then you’ll get the extra high taskbar
Tim P
Sep 22nd, 2009
If you want to use small icons, try using ’38′ – it appears through trial and error to be exactly the same size as an ‘unactivated’ small icon. You can use ’32′ to cram more in, but then the icon space shrinks when you run something whic, to me, feels wrong.
Tim P
Sep 22nd, 2009
Oops, meant to add my thanks to the person who originally shared this with us. Thanks!