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by Martin Brinkmann on September 13, 2015 in Windows - Last Update: July 05, 2017 - 25 comments
Classic Shell is a long standing program to replace various Windows interface elements, the Start Menu and Windows Explorer for instance, with classic versions.
While it was provided before the release of Windows 8, it really took off when Microsoft released the operating system with its new fullscreen Start interface.
Classic Shell was one of the programs that users of the operating system could install to regain access to a start menu they were familiar with.
The program is compatible with Windows 10 as well and most of the functionality it offers is identical to what was offered when Windows 8 was first released by Microsoft three years ago.
Classic Shell for Windows 10 supports a few features that are not available to Windows 8 or previous versions of Windows in general, and one of them is the option to make the Windows 10 taskbar fully transparent. Bonecraft save game complete.
The option to make the taskbar transparent is not enabled by default which you can see clearly after installation as the taskbar is still visible after installation.
To enable it, do the following:
- Right-click on the Classic Shell start menu icon and select settings from the context menu that opens up.
- Classic Shell displays limited settings by default and the first thing you need to do is check the 'show all settings' box at the top to display them all.
- This adds numerous tabs to the program, among them 'Windows 10 Settings' which you need to click on to proceed.
- There you find listed the 'customize taskbar' preference. Enable it, and switch to transparent as the main look for the taskbar.
- Once you have made the change, modify the taskbar opacity value and set it to 0 (meaning fully transparent).
- When you are done, click ok to apply the changes.
The taskbar should become transparent right away so that only its icons are displayed. You may play around with the opacity level, or switch it to glass or opaque to see how they look like. The taskbar color setting does nothing if you have set it to be transparent with an opacity of 0.
Closing Words
I think this looks pretty nice, especially if backed up by a nice wallpaper that is set to fit on the screen.
This is different from the transparency setting that you find under Personalization in the Windows 10 Settings. While you can set Start, taskbar, and Action center to transparent, it won't make it fully transparent if you enable that option there.
Classic Shell does that and since it provides lots of other features that you may find useful, you may want to give it a try if you have not done so already. Complete dj sound system price in india.
Classic Shell supports 100% transparent taskbars now on Windows 10
Description
Find out how to make the taskbar in Windows 10 transparent with an opacity level of 0 so that only icons and interface elements are shown.
Author
Ghacks Technology News
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AdvertisementThe Windows 10 taskbar is, by default, slightly transparent and tinted to a color you choose. If you know where to look, and you can even increase its transparency with a registry hack. But you can’t make the taskbar completely transparent, so that only your icons show up against your wallpaper.
Unless, that is, you install TranslucentTB—a free, lightweight, and open source application that lets you quickly set your taskbar to be completely transparent. It’s also capable of blurring your taskbar, and even tinting it whatever color you want.
How to Install and Use TranslucentTB
To get started, download the latest release. TranslucentTB comes in a ZIP file, so unzip it and put the EXE wherever you like.
We recommend you store the application somewhere in your user directory, but the root directory in your C drive is also a decent choice. Wherever you put the application, go head and launch it. You’ll see the effects immediately, as the taskbar becomes blurred.
You’ll find an icon for the application in your system tray, which offers two main options: Blur or Clear.
The transparent (Clear) option is nice if you want to see your entire wallpaper. The blurred look is nice if you want the taskbar to be distinct, but also want to see colors consistent with what’s in the bottom of the image.
How to Start TranslucentTB at Boot
Like the look, but want it to start when you boot Windows? That’s easy. First, press the Windows key and R to launch the Run command.
Type
shell:startup
and hit Enter. A File Explorer window will open to the Startup folder. Drag your TranslucentTB executable to this folder with the right mouse button.When you let go, you’ll be asked what you’d like to do. Select “Create shortcuts here.”
You’ve now created a shortcut to your executable in the startup folder, meaning the application will launch at boot.
Accessing a Few Additional Options
If you want TranslucentTB to start transparent, instead of blurred, we need to learn about the command prompt options offered. They’re outlined nicely here, but here’s a quick summary.
--blur
makes the taskbar blurry, which is also the default offering.--opaque
makes the taskbar a single solid color (no transparency.) By default the color is black, but you can change it using--tint
.--transparent
makes the taskbar transparent. With--tint
you can add a slight color highlight.--tint
lets you select a color that works with the--opaque
ortransparent
option (does not work with--blur
.) You’ll need the hex code for the color you want; this site makes it easy to discover that number.
Simply pick the six-digit code for the color you want, removing the “#” from the front.
To test any settings, close TranslucentTB if it’s running already. Next, open the command prompt and head to the folder where you’re storing the application using
cd
. Then try running TranslucentTB.exe
followed by the options you want. For example, if you want a transparent taskbar, this is the command:Maybe you, like a friend of mine, really really like the color orange. If so, try this command:
You get the idea. If you used the steps above to make TranslucentTB start at boot, you can add the options we’ve discovered here to that shortcut. Simply right-click the shortcut, then click “Properties.”
Now, in the “target” box, we can add our options after the executable. Like this:
The program will now start at boot with your preferred options.
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By default, Windows 10 comes with an opaque taskbar. The user can enable transparency for the taskbar, and even increase the transparency level with a Registry tweak. Many users would like to make the taskbar totally transparent and retain the blur effect. In this article, we will see how it can be done.
My Taskbar Is Transparent
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As you may already know, there is an option in Settings which enables transparency for the taskbar, Start Menu, and Action Center. It is covered in detail here:
Also, you can increase the taskbar transparency level. However, you can’t make the taskbar totally transparent and use blur in this mode to make it look like Windows 7's taskbar with Aero Glass enabled. Thankfully, there is a third-party tool which will allow changing the taskbar appearance to what we need. Here are the simple steps you need to perform.
Make Taskbar Totally Transparent With Blur in Windows 10
- Firstly, download TranslucentTB from its GitHub page. Pick the latest release.
- Double-click on the zip file you downloaded, and extract all the files to any folder you want. This folder will store the application.
- Double-click the TranslucentTB.exe and run it.
- Right-click on the TranslucentTB.exe's tray icon to adjust its options according to your preferences.
You are done.
The default look will be as follows:
By default, the blur effect is applied to the taskbar. See the screenshot.
You can disable it using the right-click menu of TranslucentTB. Select the 'clear' option to make the taskbar totally transparent in Windows 10. You will get the following appearance:
Finally, an interesting option is 'Dynamic Windows'. It combines the two options mentioned above. When no maximized windows open on the Desktop, the taskbar appears totally transparent. When you maximize a window, the taskbar looks like frosted glass.
The application is open-source and free of charge. It supports a number of command line options exposed here: command line options. The options significantly extend the app functionality. For example, you can colorize the taskbar with a custom color. A special option, '--tint COLOR', specifies the color applied to the taskbar. COLOR is 32 bit number in hex format, see explanation below. The color parameter is interpreted as a three or four byte long number in hexadecimal format that describes the four color channels 0xAARRGGBB ([alpha,] red, green and blue). These look like this: 0x80fe10a4 (the '0x' is optional). You often find colors in this format in the context of HTML and web design, and there are many online tools to convert from familiar names to this format.
Some examples:
Start with Windows, start transparent:
TranslucentTB.exe --startup --transparent --save-all
Run dynamic windows mode, with the supplied color
TranslucentTB.exe --tint 80fe10a4 --dynamic-ws tint
Will be normal when start is open, transparent otherwise.
TranslucentTB.exe --dynamic-start
Tip: If you are a Classic Shell user, you can achieve nearly the same using the app. I've covered the Classic Shell option some time ago in the article Get a completely transparent taskbar in Windows 10.
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The taskbar is one of the most useful parts of Windows. The best thing about the taskbar is that it has a very minimal footprint on the overall screen but does a lot of work and gives fast access to all your favorite apps, the Start menu, calendar, background apps, etc. Here’s how you can further customize the taskbar’s look and feel or the functionality.
1. Add Favorites Collection
Did you know that you can add toolbars with shortcuts to your favorite folders, apps, and files on the taskbar? This is one of the least known yet useful features of Taskbar. To create a toolbar, simply right-click on the taskbar and select “Toolbars -> Links.”
This will create an empty toolbar named Links. To add files, folders, or app shortcuts, simply drag and drop them onto it. Windows will automatically create a shortcut and add it to the Links toolbar. To view added files or folder shortcuts, click on the double arrow icon next to “Links” and click on any item to open them.
If you are curious, all the shortcuts you add to the Links toolbar are stored here “C:Users<username>FavoritesLinks.” You can create shortcuts in this folder, and they will appear in the Links toolbar.
Related: How to Pin Custom Folders to the Taskbar in Windows
2. Add Network Speed Monitor
Toolbars on taskbar can be used for much more than simple shortcuts. One such thing is the ability to display network speed. To display network speed on the taskbar, download and install a free app called NetSpeedMonitor. After installing, right-click on the taskbar and select “Toolbars -> NetSpeedMonitor.”
That is it. The app will automatically detect your active network card and display the upload and download speed on the taskbar. You can customize different settings like which network card to monitor, what speed metrics to use, etc., from the app settings. Just play with the app for a few minutes, and you will see a good number of options to customize the look and feel.
3. Make Taskbar Blurry, Transparent or Add Fluent Design
In Windows 10 you can change the color of the taskbar and also make it semi-transparent. Other than that, there is nothing much you can do. However, using a free app called TranslucentTB, you can make taskbar completely transparent, add blur effect, or even add Fluent design with a single click.
Just install the app, right-click on it and select the design mode from the Regular menu. That is it.
Related: Useful Tips to Hide and Customize the Taskbar in Windows 10
How To Make Taskbar Transparent
4. Change the Position of Taskbar
By default, Windows positions the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. This is generally good enough for most users. However, using the settings app, you can change the position of the taskbar to the sides or top of the screen. Changing the taskbar position to the sides is particularly useful if you have a widescreen or ultra widescreen monitor because you will get more vertical space by removing it from the bottom of the screen.
To change the taskbar position, search for “Taskbar Settings” in the Start menu and open it. Now, select the new position from the drop-down menu under the “Taskbar location on screen” section.
5. Make Taskbar Display Window Labels
If you’ve used Windows XP, then you know that Windows used to display taskbar icons with their labels. With Windows 7, Microsoft transitioned to display just the icons. This saves some space on the taskbar by combining the same app icons and looks nice too. But if you want to, you can make Windows 10 display labels along with the icons for active windows.
To enable, search for “Taskbar Settings” in the Start menu, then scroll down and select “When the taskbar is full” or “Never” from the drop-down menu under “Combine taskbar buttons.”
6. Remove Peek Button
If you look closely at the bottom-right corner of your screen, you will see a skinny button that lets you peek at the desktop when you hover over it. When clicked, it will take you to the desktop.
Though useful in some cases, I don’t remember the last time I used this feature for its intended purpose. In fact, from time to time I accidentally trigger this button and am left wondering why I’m looking at my desktop. So, if you are like me and don’t use the Peek to Preview button, you can disable it.
To disable peek to preview, search for “Taskbar Settings” in the Start menu and open it. Now, toggle the switch under “Use Peek to Preview” to off. This action will instantly disable peek to preview. You can still go to the desktop by clicking on it.
7. Increase Taskbar Height
If your taskbar is full, Windows will display a scrollbar so that you can move back and forth between all apps on the taskbar. If you don’t like this behavior, you can increase the taskbar height to create additional space.
To do that, right-click on the taskbar and uncheck the “Lock the taskbar” option.
Next, place your mouse on the top edge of the taskbar and drag it upwards. This action will increase the height of the taskbar. Once you are satisfied, right-click on the taskbar and check the option “Lock the taskbar.” It may not look pretty, but it does improve the usability on a crowded taskbar.
If you have any taskbar customization tricks that are not covered above, do share them in the comments section below.
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I just installed Windows 10 the other day. I came from Linux and am surprised by how uncustomizable Windows is. I want to add more transparency to the taskbar, but I can't figure out how. Is it possible, and if so, how do I do it?
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3 Answers
You can use classic shell to do this. There's an option in there that will allow you to make the taskbar transparent to whatever level you want.
Procedure:
- Download and install Classic Shell (above link)
- Open 'Classic Start Menu Settings'
- Check the box labeled 'Show all settings'
- Click on the tab labeled 'Taskbar'
- Set a color and opacity
Note: you may want to remove some of the things Classic Shell does by default - doing so shouldn't be too difficult, just look around the settings.
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illage4illage4
Here are two ways to modify the registry to make the taskbar more transparent:
Method 1
- Click on the Start Menu and type
regedit
and hit Enter - Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced
- Right-click on the
Advanced
subkey in the left window pane - Go down to New and select
DWORD (32-bit) Value
- Name the new value
UseOLEDTaskbarTransparency
- Now double-click on the value you just renamed
- In the new window enter 1 in the Value Data field
- Click OK and then reboot your PC
Method 2
Why Is My Taskbar Transparent
If you don't feel like doing it manually through the registry, you can use a Taskbar Transparency Hack (
n8ten8te.reg
file) from howtogeek.com that does the exact same thing descrived above but this way you just have to double-click the .reg file contained in the zip download and it will import the key automatically. You will need to reboot after doing this method as well. 5,65977 gold badges2222 silver badges3636 bronze badges
I use StartIsBack++ to have more control over the taskbar. In the StartIsBack++ options you can make Taskbar transparent and add blur
to it like in Windows 7
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