Ultimate Taskbar Controller

Everybody wants to add a personal touch, even if it's all about a slight change of color or a different background image on your desktop. Windows gives you the possibility to perform more minor adjustments, but other applications unlock even more possibilities. A suitable example is Ultimate Taskbar Controller, which needless to say that targets the taskbar.

A neat advantage is that you don't need to go through an installation process, with the application's features being available as soon as you finish downloading it. Besides the possibility to keep it on a removable storage device, it also leaves registries untouched, thus having a minor impact on your machine.

Everything you can do and manage is kept in a compact main window that poses no accommodation problems. Each option only needs to be checked, with the description being enough to get an idea of the effect. Most changes apply in real time so you can experiment with settings at first, while a few require a system restart to be applied.

We must say that options at your disposal are rather disappointing, because they don't bring more practicality, nor any major visual improvements. For instance, you can remove the volume icon from the tray, permanently hide the clock, notification area or the taskbar completely.

An extra option brings up a new window full of sliders with which to adjusts size and positioning of thumbnail previews. These refer to minimum and maximum thumbnail size, as well as margins and borders.

Intentions are good, but the lack of a preview section is disturbing, because it forces you to restart the system to see changes, and working with numerical values puts a little pressure on imagination. Luckily, there's a button to revert changes in case new settings don't tickle your fancy.

Ultimate Taskbar Controller only presents a set of decent general ideas aimed at taskbar appearance and functionality. However, taking a closer look at what it has to offer might make you reconsider, with no preview section to test out functions, and not a lot of practicality that can be pulled out from applying any of the settings.