Is there any way to customize the Windows 7 taskbar auto-hide behavior? Delay activation? Timer?

Question

I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with the way Windows 7 handles showing a hidden taskbar. It's incredibly over-eager to pop out and obscure what I'm really trying to interact with, requiring me to move the mouse away, wait for it to auto-hide again, then resume what I was doing but more deliberately.

After closely examining the behavior, it appears that a hidden taskbar "peeks out" from the edge by 2 or 3 pixels, and slowly moving your mouse into this area activates it; you don't even need to touch the edge of the screen.

I would love it if there was a way to customize or change this behavior. Ideally, the taskbar would only pop out if you are actively "pushing" the edge of the screen it is hidden on. So activation only occurs once you've reached the screens edge and continue to move the mouse past a customizable threshold.

Alternatively, a simple activation delay would suffice as well. So only if the mouse remains in that 2-3 pixel area (a.k.a. on the taskbar) for greater than a customizable amount of time does it pop out again. This would only be a fraction of a second. Often times the cursor simply "careens" off the edge of the screen while trying to focus on something nearby.

Anyway, if there are any registry settings or utilities that can achieve either of these effects, that would be great! Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

Try this: Taskbar Activate.

Manage the way taskbar window is displayed on the screen :

• displayed or hidden are directly managed by Taskbar Activate.
• delayed activation when mouse is over.
• force activation or not with "always on top" windows.
• make the taskbar always reachable even with full-screen windows.
• works with dynamic screen resolution change, moving the taskbar to another edge of the screen , Windows 98 multi-monitor.
• show a highlight line when mouse is over.
• manage also others Windows bars.
• it can be temporary suspended.
• you can have the taskbar completely hidden (no more one line at the bottom of the screen).
• you can choose the color for hilighting when you go over the taskbar.
• you can stop managing one bar if there is a problem with it.
• even more options.

Answer 2

Try this application instead: Taskbar Activate.

This worked for me on Windows 7 x64. I disabled all the settings except for the following:

1. Delayed activation of the taskbar (200ms)
2. Restart the delay when mouse moves
3. Go over 'always on top' windows.