Start toolbar

Hi, Kathy.

Perhaps some terminology is making it harder for you to get the results you
want. That blue stripe across the bottom of your screen is the Taskbar.
(Much about the Taskbar is customizable; I'm using the default configuration
for discussion.) At the left end is the Start button; you MAY have the
Quick Launch toolbar activated next to it. The middle section is the
Taskbar proper. On the far right is the clock, and just to the left of the
clock is the Notification Area, which many of us still call the System Tray,
or SysTray, for short.

When we launch any program, a rectangular "button" type icon for it appears
in the middle area of the Taskbar and stays there until we close the
program, even if the program is minimized and running in the background.
Clicking on this icon brings this program to the foreground.

Many kinds of programs also put icons in the Notification Area. A few
examples: Real player; the online connection; antivirus programs; a speaker
icon that we can click to adjust the volume or mute it. Some of these
programs have options within them to display their icons; others give us no
choice.

Right-click the Start button and click Properties, then the Taskbar tab. At
the bottom of this window, check the box to Hide inactive icons, then click
Customize... On the next screen you have many choices. For each icon, you
can choose to Always Hide, Always Show or Hide when Inactive. The choices
are not always intuitive, so you probably will need a trial-and-error
process to get them just the way you want them; this might take some time:
it takes a while for WinXP to decide that an icon is "inactive", so you
can't do subsequent experiments without a wait. (A short-cut to this screen
is to right-click the clock and click Customize Notifications...)

Post back with any further questions after you've experimented with this for
a bit.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc DeleteThis @corridor.net
Microsoft Windows MVP

"Kathy" wrote in message

 > Hi,
 >
 > On my start toolbar (actually to the right of it), I see
 > a bunch of programs running in the background that I
 > don't want to be there. For instance, it shows Norton
 > and the internet when I am on it. I want those running
 > in the background. However, there are other things like
 > my digital camera software and others. I don't want to
 > delete the software programs, but I want them to not
 > launch when I boot or run in the background. How do I
 > get them to stop running in the background and showing
 > next to the clock at the bottom righthand side of the
 > screen?
 >
 > Thanks!
 > Kathy
 >> Stay informed about: Start toolbar 

"Kathy" wrote in message

 > Hi,
 >
 > On my start toolbar (actually to the right of it), I see
 > a bunch of programs running in the background that I
 > don't want to be there. For instance, it shows Norton
 > and the internet when I am on it. I want those running
 > in the background. However, there are other things like
 > my digital camera software and others. I don't want to
 > delete the software programs, but I want them to not
 > launch when I boot or run in the background. How do I
 > get them to stop running in the background and showing
 > next to the clock at the bottom righthand side of the
 > screen?
 >
 > Thanks!
 > Kathy

Perhaps you want to minimize your apps to the System Tray. Check out
this app (warning, I haven't tried it; it was the first thing I found when I
hit Google):
<a rel="nofollow" style='text-decoration: none;' href="http://www.minimize-to-tray.com/" target="_blank">http://www.minimize-to-tray.com/</a>


TCPW
 >> Stay informed about: Start toolbar