I never cared too much about all the toolbars in the taskbar except for the quicklaunch one. As an experiment i added the address toolbar. I found out it was good for launching websites, even with firefox as default browser, and for opening directories/folders without the trail of double clicks to get to the folder. As a bonus the address field remembers previous inputs.
I also tried if cmd would run and it did so i searched for a way to start other programs from the address bar. The solution i come up with is simple and expandable.
I created a batch file, a text file with the extension .bat, with only one line.
START c:\start\%1
The start command lets you run the program. The folder is one i made to put all my program shortcuts in. %1 is the first parameter of the batch file. I saved the file as start.bat in the c:\windows\system32 folder.
In the start folder i made a shortcut to 7-zip with that name so i can type in the address field 'start 7-zip' and the program starts. The only thing you have to do is to add shortcuts with the name you prefer to start other programs.
I like visual aids to search the window i'm looking for. In firefox i use the ctrl tab preview add-on and for programs i use the Microsoft Alt-Tab Replacement powertoy. I had downloaded the Visual Task Tips program but i hadn't installed it before. This shows a thumbnail screenshot of the program if you hover over the program in the taskbar. Because i'm using the address toolbar i put the taskbar on top which made the visual task tips more visible too. Now together with the Taskbar Shuffle program the taskbar has become more than a collection of clickable things.
Update : i changed from alt-tab replacement powertoy to TaskSwitchXP because the screenshots are bigger and it selects windows that aren't in the taskbar too.
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