In Office 2003, I Really Miss the Office Toolbar!

[Davin Mickelson]

I have installed Office 2003 Professional and am quite impressed with the
new versions of the applications. However, as a developer, I often have
several applications open simultaneously and cannot stand using the shortcut
toolbars on the taskbar because the space is already quite limited by the
taskbar buttons of my applications and the tray icons. I prefer to use the
Office toolbar by having it reside at the top of the screen over the title
bar of my currently focused application. I usually have about 30 small
grouped icons in my Office toolbar.

Questions:
1. How can I make a formal request to the Office development team to put it
back?

2. Is there a way (a hack) to use the Office 2000 or Office XP toolbar with
Office 2003? Does anyone know of any tricks? I have legal licenses, of
course, for these older versions of Office too.

3. Perhaps I'm not understanding how to use the QuickLaunch toolbar
correctly. How do I move it to the top of the screen without moving my
taskbar? Any suggestions on how to create a floating shortcut toolbar is
greatly appreciated. I'll be the first to blame myself for my stupidity.


P.S. - Unrelated, but in Outlook 2003, I love (new feature!) being able to
sort my emails based on which email account they arrived in. I usually have
two or three set up. Awesome!

Thanks,
Davin Mickelson

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Davin,

You can make product change suggestions through
http://microsoft.com/mswish .

You can create a new toolbar in Windows 2000
or XP to hold a lot of small icons.
Right click on a blank spot on the taskbar and
choose Toolbars=>New Toolbars and name and create
a new folder for it. Then drag the toolbar off
of the taskbar while viewing your desktop and you can
resize it into a rectangle of suitable size and shape
then drag your icons to it and right click on the
toolbar to turn off 'show text' to display just the
icons.

You can install the Office Shortcut bar through
a custom installation choice in Office 2000 or Office XP
but the new Office 2003 icons may not look right

There are 3rd party toolbars some folks have been
trying out including
http://www.jetaudio.com/download/jettoolbar.html

======
I have installed Office 2003 Professional and am quite impressed with the
new versions of the applications. However, as a developer, I often have
several applications open simultaneously and cannot stand using the shortcut
toolbars on the taskbar because the space is already quite limited by the
taskbar buttons of my applications and the tray icons. I prefer to use the
Office toolbar by having it reside at the top of the screen over the title
bar of my currently focused application. I usually have about 30 small
grouped icons in my Office toolbar.

Questions:
1. How can I make a formal request to the Office development team to put it
back?

2. Is there a way (a hack) to use the Office 2000 or Office XP toolbar with
Office 2003? Does anyone know of any tricks? I have legal licenses, of
course, for these older versions of Office too.

3. Perhaps I'm not understanding how to use the QuickLaunch toolbar
correctly. How do I move it to the top of the screen without moving my
taskbar? Any suggestions on how to create a floating shortcut toolbar is
greatly appreciated. I'll be the first to blame myself for my stupidity.


P.S. - Unrelated, but in Outlook 2003, I love (new feature!) being able to
sort my emails based on which email account they arrived in. I usually have
two or three set up. Awesome!

Thanks,
Davin Mickelson >>
--
I hope this helps you,

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

The Office 2003 System parts explained
http://microsoft.com/uk/office/preview/system.asp

 

[Davin Mickelson]

Thanks for your reply, Bob.

I created a new toolbar as you suggested in a new folder. It now appears on
my taskbar but when I try to drag it off the taskbar, it won't budge. The
pointer turns into the four-way arrow (as it should) when I hold the left
mouse button down, but it just won't move up. It only moves left and right.
Windows 2000 Server - SP4.

I worry about using 3rd-party toolbars as they may be trojan horses for
advertising (web popup) engines and web tracking software. I hate software
that is sneaky and hinders my computer's performance. Are these guys legit?

Thanks for your help,
Davin Mickelson

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Davin,

I haven't heard any reports about the Jetaudio toolbar
being advertising supported, but you can certainly check
it with products such as Ad Aware,
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
The Jetaudio toolbar is one of several that folks have
mentioned trying as an Office Shortcut Bar replacement
and seems to have been liked, but then its being free
could be part of that <g>

I'm not holding down the ctrl button when dragging and
pull straight up on the toolbar without a problem.
I created the folder on the desktop and can drag that folder
back to the taskbar to recreate the toolbar when needed
as well.

======
Thanks for your reply, Bob.

I created a new toolbar as you suggested in a new folder. It now appears on
my taskbar but when I try to drag it off the taskbar, it won't budge. The
pointer turns into the four-way arrow (as it should) when I hold the left
mouse button down, but it just won't move up. It only moves left and right.
Windows 2000 Server - SP4.

I worry about using 3rd-party toolbars as they may be trojan horses for
advertising (web popup) engines and web tracking software. I hate software
that is sneaky and hinders my computer's performance. Are these guys legit?

Thanks for your help,
Davin Mickelson >>
--
I hope this helps you,

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

The Office 2003 System parts explained
http://microsoft.com/uk/office/preview/system.asp

 

[Davin Mickelson]

Here is where Microsoft states of the Office Shortcut bar's demise for
Office 2003.
http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HP010716391033&CTT=1
(URL may wrap).

I figured out why I couldn't move the toolbar from the Taskbar to the
Desktop in Windows 2000. You must enable Active Desktop. As a developer I
never enable Active Desktop because it is essentially Internet Explorer (and
any potential embedded Browser Helper Objects) running in the background all
the time. Once I right-clicked the Desktop, clicked once on "Active Desktop"
and then on "Show Web Content", I was then able to move the toolbars onto
the desktop. On my Windows XP Pro machine, I was able to do it immediately.

Placing the "now mobile" toolbar near the top of the screen forces it to
expand the entire width and waste a great amount of space. I am going to see
how to make the Office XP or Office 2000 toolbar work on my system (I'll try
copying the .EXE file), check out the toolbar you recommended, and (as a
last resort) create a new toolbar myself.

Bob, you've been very helpful to me. Thank you.
Davin Mickelson 8^)