ps: sorry for my poor English

No, or not easily. That setting is built into the themes, specifically the aero styles, and in the infinite wisdom of Microsoft, they don’t let you modify it without hacks (see below).

I had to go through a lot of crap to fix it so that the tasks in my vertical taskbar were not the default over-sized buttons fit only for chubby fingers on kiosk touchscreens. It wouldn’t be (such) a problem if that “Superbar,” or whatever they call it, allowed multiple columns in vertical mode. As such, I had to modify the height of those tasks so they were at their minimum to allow as many tasks as possible to be visible. Even that’s not enough.

If you want to apply such mods you need an Aero style builder. The best one I’ve found is Ave’s Vista Style Builder.

If you want to apply the taskbar task-size mod I mentioned using that program, you need to install UxStyle Core, and then modify the taskbar setting under Windows 7 -> Taskbar & Tray Notify -> Basic -> Taskbar Vertical -> TaskItemButton (top-link) -> ContentMargins:Margins = 10,10,x,x where x is a smaller value than the default 7. There are probably other settings for the changes you want too.

Is it possible to increase the size of the Windows 7 taskbar in small increments, in the same way as you can adjust the title bars of windows with Window Color and Appearance?

Many thanks.

In this case you would use the same taskbar that Windows has used for years (settings: use small icons and only combine taskbar buttons when taskbar is full), which suites the usage of a PC better than the mac style. I still dock a few frequently used items (Outlook, browser, etc) to access using “Win+1″, “Win+2″, etc. but not more. Why would you dock so many programs with such an easy to use start menu to launch programs? You may find that more aesthetically appealing but it’s definitely not more efficient in any way.

Why would this be useful? Quickly switching between apps and their data without fishing through menus. At a glance one can switch to a document without having to first click to the app, then go to the window menu to select which one we want to use. I never liked the dock either, and the need to hold down the button to switch to whatever window happened to be on the icon.

Mac OS’s interface is designed foremost as a single-app/task OS. This is why one app takes control of a menu at the top of the screen, rather than attached to a window, like in Windows. Windows is different. It’s designed such that you switch between apps, or use multiple apps at once. You can use multiple apps at once on a Mac as well, but your attention is focused on the primary app, and to do anything with the secondary one, you have to switch it to the front and manipulate the menus.

Many of you speak of Windows being just full of superfluous apps and such. Rather, Windows users can and do install many apps for our needs and purposes. If you’re content to use a computer just for email and web, and maybe a little word processing, that’s great. There are, however, some of us that use our machines for far more, and simultaneously. I, for one, don’t want to waste my time opening and closing applications on my system; I just leave them running in the background. If it takes up space in the taskbar, or start menu, so what? It’s hidden from view and out of my way. I’ve also seen very “cluttered” OSX docks, because the user likes to have many applications available at the same time. Good for them.

I too find it extremely annoying that the taskbar, when side-docked, does not allow multiple columns. This is the most logical place to put it on a widescreen monitor, but its usefulness is several hampered by this oversight.

In Windows 7 you spare some icons by using the jump lists (like I don’t have links for 3 folders anymore, just one for the explorer) although you can’t access them as quickly.
I don’t put anything one the desktop because the quicklaunch was quicker(!) AND looked much better. The start menu is completely out of the question for me for regular programs because it’s too complicated, let alone the search programs feature.

But so far so good. The trouble starts now with my now widescreen monitor. Because now I want to put the taskbar to the side to save room and immediately it’s full and forces me to use the horrible scroll bar. Especially horrible because you have most programs on the first column and unpinned programs will always go to the second colum.
Apparently I can’t even put additional toolbars as columns next to it, they all go below each other. That’s really bad design.

I guess most people don’t realize the problem here but if you are used to accessing all your programs with one click, and using jumplists seems slow to you, then using that scroll bar drives you nuts.
Not to mention the lost overview because you only see some of your running applications.

ps: The advice to use fewer programs isn’t very helpful.