“Move” the Show Desktop Button on the Taskbar in Windows 7

October 21st, 2010 by Lori Kaufman | File in: Windows 7

In Windows XP, there is a Show Desktop shortcut on the Quick Launch Bar that hides all other windows and shows you the desktop. Clicking it again shows all the windows that were covering the desktop.

The Show Desktop button is available in Windows 7, but it’s not as obvious. It was moved to the far, right end of the Taskbar.

There is a way to pin a Show Desktop button to the Taskbar, essentially moving it to a more obvious place. You can use a free, portable application called Show Desktop that you can pin to the Taskbar, since it is an executable file. It performs the same task as the Show Desktop button on the right end of the Taskbar.

Download Show Desktop from

http://realitytouchdesign.deviantart.com/art/Show-Desktop-164881442.

The file is in .rar format and can be extracted using 7-Zip which is free and can be downloaded from

http://www.7-zip.org/.

To use Show Desktop, extract the downloaded file.

The Show Desktop.exe file is extracted.

Drag the Show Desktop.exe file to the Taskbar to pin it.

You can also right-click on the Show Desktop.exe file and select Pin to Taskbar from the popup menu.

The Show Desktop Link is now available on the Taskbar. You can click this to quickly hide all open programs and access the desktop. Click it again to show all the programs that were covering the desktop.

If you only want to have the Show Desktop link in its new position on the Taskbar, you can remove the original Show Desktop button from the far, right side of the Taskbar. There is a free, portable utility, called Windows 7 Show Desktop Button Remover, to help you do this.

Download Windows 7 Show Desktop Button Remover from

http://www.door2windows.com/windows-7-show-desktop-button-remover-remove-windows-7-show-desktop-button-with-one-click/.

The Windows 7 Show Desktop Button Remover must be run as administrator. To do this, right-click on the .exe file you downloaded and select Run as administrator from the popup menu.

Click Yes on the User Account Control dialog box that displays.

The simple Windows 7 Show Desktop Button Remover window displays. To remove the original Show Desktop button from the Taskbar, click Remove Show Desktop Button.

The original Show Desktop button is removed.

You can easily show the original Show Desktop button again by clicking Add Show Desktop Button on the Windows 7 Show Desktop Button Remover window.