Quick tip: Add the “read mail” button to IE7
Arrived safely on the East Coast. Still don’t like flying. A quick tip today.
For those of you who miss using IE 6 because you liked the Read Mail button, fear not — it is a quick fix to add it to IE 7. (Note: this feature works with Outlook.)
Tip of the day: Customize IE’s toolbar to get the buttons you want, and delete the ones you don’t. The first step is getting the toolbar to show, and to “unlock it”. I described the steps for that in an earlier article. Please click on the link and review, if you run into any troubles with the following steps.
To add a button to you toolbar, 
click on the”gray gear” Tools button. Now click (or ‘hover’ your cursor over) the “Toolbars” item of the context menu window. Next click on the bottom option, “Customize”, and you will see an Add/Remove selection tool.
As this photo shows, I have selected the Read Mail icon. Simply click on “Add->”, which moves it from the left-hand column (not showing on toolbar) to the right-hand column (on the toolbar).
While I’m here, I’m going to eliminate the buttons I never use, because the IE 7 toolbar is not very big, and it’s available area decreases as you open more tabs (I typically have 3-5 websites/pages open at any given time). In the right-hand column, I selected (clicked) the Skype icon, the MSN Messenger icon, and the Real.com icon, and clicked on “<-Remove”.
The final step is to resize the toolbar so that all the button icons show. Click Tools >Toolbars >Lock the Taskbar and remove the check there. Now a verticle row of dots will appear which indicates the edge, and the anchor postion of the toolbar.
Click on this and drag it to the left. This will “expand” the tool bar until all the buttons are showing. That’s it. We’re done.
I would like to point out that this is standard operating procedure with Microsoft programs. Almost all of the toolbars are “customize-able” in this manner.
Today’s free link: A comment on my article about switching back to XP pointed out to me that a lot of folks (myself included) are having some Vista+midi devices (sound cards, mostly) difficulties. There is a musician’s Vista resource page that is an excellent source for sound card drivers and more. To see it, click here, http://www.cakewalk.com/Vista/default.asp.
Copyright 2007 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.
| Share this post : |  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
• About Tech Paul
I am a Retired computer & network technician. I used to think the machines were pretty cool. Now I don’t.
They’re anything but.
I regularly posted how-to’s and tricks & tips and general computing advice here starting in 2007. (Use the Search tool to find answers. But be aware, many are rather dated.) Sometimes I answered (your) specific questions in an article if I believed the answer was generally helpful to “everyone”. All the writing you see was my own, typos and all. There always is/was an implied “IMHO” in what you see here.
Note: You are responsible for using this blog and its content. I am in no way liable for any losses caused by user error, viruses and/or other malware, hardware or software failure, or any other conceivable reason.
-
Say "thank you!" Buy Tech Paul a cup of coffee (and keep T4E ad free).
-
-
McAfee® Cybersafety Resource Portal, an online help center designed to assist victims of computer crime and provide information on how to avoid becoming a victim.
-
Subscribe to Tech--for Everyone by EmailRecent Comments
-
-
-
-
Also:
-
-
Tech - for Everyone 