Windows 7 - Notification Area Icon Size

Le_Petit_Lapin · 25 Nov 2009 at 15:25

How do you make the icons in the notification area smaller? The damn thing is HUGE compared to Vista!

SiriusB · 25 Nov 2009 at 15:33

Right-click on the Taskbar then Properties then Customize [about half way down].

From here you can decide which icons are hidden or not and whether or not they can pop out and yell BOO when something's up

Le_Petit_Lapin · 25 Nov 2009 at 15:53

Yeah, but the icons themselves are bigger then they were in Vista, is there a way of scaling the icon size back down?

eggcup · 25 Nov 2009 at 16:16

you mean the taskbar dont you? not the notification area? right click on the task bar> properties> tick box use small icons

Tolmekian · 25 Nov 2009 at 16:16

Right click the taskbar, select properties, and check the box for 'use small icons'

V4NT0M · 25 Nov 2009 at 16:16

Sorry to hijack the thread but it is at all possible to make the notification area grow like in vista/xp rather than pop up that annoying bubble?

Tolmekian · 25 Nov 2009 at 16:18

Skyfall said:
Sorry to hijack the thread but it is at all possible to make the notification area grow like in vista/xp rather than pop up that annoying bubble?

Right click taskbar, select properties, then customize. Then under 'behaviors' select show icon and notifications and they will then permanantly be on show.

Le_Petit_Lapin · 26 Nov 2009 at 19:02

eggcup said:
you mean the taskbar dont you? not the notification area? right click on the task bar> properties> tick box use small icons

No, I mean the notification area. The icons, or the spacing between them is bigger, and irritating me.

Skyfall said:
Sorry to hijack the thread but it is at all possible to make the notification area grow like in vista/xp rather than pop up that annoying bubble?

I also think "the bubble" is retarded.

Souljacker · 26 Nov 2009 at 21:46

I like it, I have everything hidden now, except the clock of course

Phatjayunoi · 26 Nov 2009 at 22:20

I really miss the System Tray/Notification Area from Windows XP, as the icons were just about a perfect small size to fit in lots of things. And if you customise the entire Fisher-Price Taskbar theme with the Windows 7 look (As shown here), it makes two rows of icons as standard which is great if you have a lot of System Tray appilcations enabled.

I also remember that you can scale the size of the System Tray icons by either changing your text size DPI or changing the size of the Active Title Bar in the Windows Colour and Appearance setting.

I just wish I can have this same 2 row look in Windows 7 as standard instead of one massive spaced-out row. Resizing the Taskbar itself doesn't help at all as it will be too big.

SiriusB · 26 Nov 2009 at 22:25

Why is it retarded? Put everything you never look at in there and only have them show to notify you of something. The rest that you do want to look at can be on display. You don't ever have to look at the bubble again.

I don't think anything is wrong with the icon spacing or size, either. Who sits and stares at their notification area anyway? But as ever aesthetics are very personal so I will just :confused:

quietly lol

Phatjayunoi · 26 Nov 2009 at 22:33

SiriusB said:
I don't think anything is wrong with the icon spacing or size, either. Who sits and stares at their notification area anyway? But as ever aesthetics are very personal so I will just quietly lol

Well yeah exactly, people are different.

I'm one of the few that likes to have whatever software/program which has a System Tray icon enabled there so that I know it is running in the background or for easy access (Volume Control, Specialised Mouse or Keyboard Configuration, Anti-Virus, Steam etc). Plus I have a big enough monitor and resolution anyways so it doesn't really matter.

It will just be nice if it was a lot more customisable. But one things for sure, just like the Windows 7 Taskbar, at least you can finally move the icons around though.

SiriusB · 26 Nov 2009 at 22:50

That's what I don't get, even on a 17" laptop screen it hardly takes up any room so not sure why it is even an issue, and it is a part of the Windows interface you probably only glance at occasionally.

Each to their own!

I am sure there are Themes out there with the tweaks people are after, if not there probably soon will be.

Tripnologist · 27 Nov 2009 at 00:44

Phatjayunoi said:
It will just be nice if it was a lot more customisable.

What kind of customisation are you looking for?
You can have the icon show permanently or only show notifications, or always be completely hidden.

V4NT0M · 27 Nov 2009 at 01:14

Jason_AJB said:
Right click taskbar, select properties, then customize. Then under 'behaviors' select show icon and notifications and they will then permanantly be on show.

I still want to hide them just expand the icons like in Vista.

SiriusB said:
Why is it retarded? Put everything you never look at in there and only have them show to notify you of something. The rest that you do want to look at can be on display. You don't ever have to look at the bubble again

But I want to access programs that are resident in the notification area without having them displayed the whole time. It was just better in Vista/XP because you only have to move your mouse horizontally whereas with the W7 one you have to move Horizontally and Vertically.

Also the icons are much wider apart meaning more movement, and if you have a lot of notification area icons they usually stay at least in similar places, with the W7 bubble they move about and change as it adds new rows.

It may work for some people but it just doesn't work for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's unusable I just prefer the original one.