ok, sorry to say all this so horribly vaguely, but on the bottom of my screen, on the grey bar thing, the little button tabs you press to go between your windows like this internet one, well, they were all on the left side closer to the round start button, as they always are, but one day they went to the other side, closer to the clock, and if there are two, they cram together in the space where one should be, if there are three it can scroll through them. anyway, it's extremely annoying and inconvenient, so, obviously what i'm asking is this: how do i get it back to normal?

i'd try to ask microsoft but i went to the site and where i went it said they'd charge me $59 to ask my question. that's why gates is rich!

thanks for making my life better, person who answers.

I'm not proficient with Vista, but this may still help:

The taskbar (gray bar at the bottom) can have dividers on it. One of those dividers could be what's smashing your application buttons (the buttons you click to switch between windows) onto the right side.

To move the divider, you need to unlock the task bar. That's pretty simple: click the taskbar (anywhere NOT on a button, click the bar itself). A menu should come up, and there should be an option on it that says "Lock the Taskbar." If there is a check mark next to it, click it (which will make the check mark go away). If there's NOT a check mark next to it, leave it alone and just click somewhere else on the screen to get rid of the menu.

Once the taskbar is unlocked, you should be able to see the little divider. I'm not sure what they look like in Vista, but in older versions of windows they were just vertical lines in the taskbar. It should be sitting JUST off to the left of your application buttons (window switcher buttons). Just click it and drag it to the left. That SHOULD cause the buttons to move back to where they're supposed to be.

Once you've got that how you want it, just right click the taskbar again, click "lock the taskbar" again to "check" it, and the divider should disappear. That way it won't get moved around accidentally in the future.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:I'm not proficient with Vista, but this may still help:

The taskbar (gray bar at the bottom) can have dividers on it. One of those dividers could be what's smashing your application buttons (the buttons you click to switch between windows) onto the right side.

To move the divider, you need to unlock the task bar.

sorry to waste your time typing, but i read that much and fixed the problem!!! thanks SO MUCH! that's been annoying the hell out of me for WEEKS now! i don't know how i didn't think to do that. simply amazing. i feel stupid. haha.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:Once you've got that how you want it, just right click the taskbar again, click "lock the taskbar" again to "check" it, and the divider should disappear. That way it won't get moved around accidentally in the future.

that would be how it could get messed up (unlocked), but i NEVER had it unlocked. i hate it unlocked. i wonder how it happened. lol, now that i think of it, it happened when my girlfriend was on my laptop

thanks again.

No problem. I figure it's better to overexplain than underexplain.

Moral of the story:Don't let your girlfriend use your laptop.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:No problem. I figure it's better to overexplain than underexplain.

i wish everyone thought like that!

MinisterofDOOM wrote:Moral of the story:Don't let your girlfriend use your laptop.

haha