How to re-arrange your Windows XP taskbar

The ability to re-arrange the applications on the taskbar is one of the nice new features of Windows 7. This is of course nothing exceptionally new, as the dock on Apple Macs allows you to do it for quite some time.

But if you’re still stuck in realm of Windows XP or even Vista, like me on my Win XP work machine, you’ll need some extra help to re-arrange those running applications on the taskbar.

But why the need to re-arrange it in the first place? Well, I suppose it’s an individual preference and a personal choice. I, for one, love to have a very organized work environment. I love a very clean desktop and I’d always prefer my most used apps to remain on the left-most side of the taskbar so that I can easily access them since that’s how my mind works. But whatever you’re preference are, if you ever wanted to re-arrange the taskbar, then here’s the tool to get it done. Best of all, it’s also free!

The tool, as you’ve seen in the image above, is aptly called Taskbar Shuffle. You can get it here both in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.

Once installed and running in the background, Taskbar Shuffle will allow you to simply click-hold the application taskbar and move it left or right to your fancy!

Re-arranging the taskbar as you please!

So now, I can move the Thunderbird taskbar to the left-most position, followed by Chrome, and whatever else I please, no matter when I starts-up the said applications. I do wonder why Windows XP or Vista is not able to do that natively in the first place.

But there’s more to it! This free utility also provides you further functionalities as the following:-

Reorder your tray icons in the same way

Reorder tasks in a grouped button’s popup menu in the same way

Middle-click to close programs on your taskbar

Works with UltraMon (version 3+ only) taskbars

Tweak taskbar button grouping

Works on the tray too!

Talk about extra powers bestowed on you to control the taskbar. 🙂