Do items pinned to Taskbar take up space?

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I know that having too many desktop shortcuts can take up memory, but I wonder if items that I “Pin to Taskbar” also use up memory? I love this Windows 7 feature and have about 13 programs pinned to the taskbar. Should I try to have as few as possible in the taskbar? I use the Quick Launch feature in Word to quickly locate recent Word docs and also like this feature. ec

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I do not believe the apps pinned are taking any memory until such time as you start them running. Unless a thumbnail pops up when you hover your cursor over the icon, then it is not running.

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I have apps pinned to my task bar and I also have the old “quick launch” toolbar enabled. I usually add an app to the task bar if it can take advantage of the jump lists. If I can’t make use of a jump list for a particular app then it goes into the quick launch toolbar.

I use the Quick Launch feature in Word to quickly locate recent Word docs

I think you mean jump lists (not Quick Launch). And I agree, this is one of my favorite features. I must have a dozen documents permanently pinned to the jump list.

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cafed00d: Sorry to clutter your inbox, but I don’t how else to thank you for your helpful reply other through this reply. Is there a way to reply directly to a member for their thread replies and not clutter up the Lounge answers? ellenc

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cafed00d: Sorry to clutter your inbox, but I don’t how else to thank you for your helpful reply other through this reply. Is there a way to reply directly to a member for their thread replies and not clutter up the Lounge answers? ellenc

It is better for the community for you to respond in these public forums. That way we all can benefit from the exchange.

Joe

--Joe

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I know that having too many desktop shortcuts can take up memory, but I wonder if items that I “Pin to Taskbar” also use up memory? I love this Windows 7 feature and have about 13 programs pinned to the taskbar. Should I try to have as few as possible in the taskbar? I use the Quick Launch feature in Word to quickly locate recent Word docs and also like this feature. ec

Does a book on the shelf in the kitchen take up less space than when in the library?

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Does a book on the shelf in the kitchen take up less space than when in the library?

EXACTLY, RussB, w/ theee BEST answer yet! :fanfare::clapping::thewave::coffeetime:

And, yes, the item’s STILL gonna take up space, it’s just in a different area. This makes me want to unpin all the “books” I’ve pinned to my taskbar. I gotta stop bein’ so lazy & just make a few more clicks to get to my Word doc or open my browser or get to my email, etc.

Now get this: I recently purchased an HP Notebook (laptop) not 12 months ago…more like 10, & ALREADY it’s saying, “Free up space–delete unnecessary items!” (aka: books) Funny thing is, THERE ISN’T ANYTHING EXTRA THAT I HAVE PERSONALLY DOWNLOADED TO MY NOTEPAD!!! It’s all clogged up w/ whatever came w/ the device! I’ve cleaned, defragged, unpinned, deleted shortcuts, emptied recycle bin, cleared cache, cleared history, deleted temp files…basically EVERYTHING I could think of that wasn’t (for lack of a better term) nailed down. And STILL! ~ I get the same message that I’ve been getting since barely a month after I took this HP Notepad out of it’s box & booted her up.

NOW? Now it’s almost all outta memory/space & I even uninstalled Google Chrome thinking I would give me a bit more room & I could reinstall at a later date. Nope. Tried. Says there’s not enough room to download Chrome; but not just Chrome…this little effer won’t allow ANY downloads/installations! It barely even wants to work (the little lazy B!), let alone accept a download. It also says I can’t upload photos, documents, etc., into OneDrive OR Dropbox because there’s not enough hard drive space. HUH??? Aren’t those programs virtual (or so-to-speak) & supposed to be used when you want to SAVE room on your hard drive??!!! Why do Dropbox & OneDrive all of a sudden need hard drive space when they live in the virtual cloud???!!! Perhaps I’m just a big dummy & don’t get it, I guess. What a mess. :confused:

…confusion sets in…
…frustration ensues…

Anyone have any answers for this dilemma or just wanna vent about it? I’m game. OH! & does anyone wanna donate their used, but in-working-order, HP Flyer Red laptop? I’ll take it! Cuz this silly little HP Notepad is just that: silly. It really came w/o much memory at all I’ve come to reluctantly realize. So what did I purchase? Sheesh.

Oh well…thanx for reading me.

Frazzled—but still: love & kindness to all,
5H1780X :rolleyes::)

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Anyone have any answers for this dilemma

Tell us what model of HP you have and we can give you meaningful suggestions.
Does it have a slot for a memory card? Have you thought of adding a USB flash drive permanently?

Image or Clone often! Backup, backup, backup, backup......
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wouldnt it be more like If the image of that book in the library is duplicated and placed on the shelf in the kitchen? honest question… but it would be taking up space… not as much unless it was a complete duplication… but i think you know what i mean… so would the reply to mine be… the duplicated book takes up significantly less space to where its not worth measuring? sincerely asking.

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I know that having too many desktop shortcuts can take up memory, but I wonder if items that I “Pin to Taskbar” also use up memory? I love this Windows 7 feature and have about 13 programs pinned to the taskbar. Should I try to have as few as possible in the taskbar? I use the Quick Launch feature in Word to quickly locate recent Word docs and also like this feature. ec

Yes, it does take up ‘memory’ but it’s a special type of storage (not physical space nor ‘ordinary’ RAM) called GDI resources. Every icon or graphic element displayed onscreen reserves a fractional amount of this storage for its display. That includes every icon in every toolbar (including the taskbar) and all the graphic elements like minimize, maximize and close buttons of every window. Once reserved, the allocated storage remains in use until the graphic element is removed again, e.g. when a program is closed… if the program is well-written.

Since Windows 95 the amount of storage set aside for GDI resources has been increased substantially so, in theory, you shouldn’t run out. Unfortunately it’s not unknown for programs to be badly written and either ‘leak’ resources or not hand the GDI resource allocation back to the system when the program’s window container is closed.

A good example of this happening can often be demonstrated by tab-based browsers. Not only does each tab use ‘ordinary’ RAM but each tab usually also displays a tiny icon (called a ‘favicon’). As more and more tabs are opened and graphic elements are displayed (even if scrolled out-of-view), so the reserved storage set aside for GDI resources is used up.

When you start to see icons appear just as black placeholders or when menus fail to appear, it’s often/usually a sign that GDI resources are exhausted. These day’s it’s rare and most people will never experience it. When it does happen there’s nothing you can really do except shut down and restart. This frees up the system resources storage pool to be re-used from scratch again.

(Note: If you ever experience it with Windows 7 then it’s possible to adjust the amount of storage reservation for GDI resources by a registry edit.)

You can see the number of GDI objects in use for each program using Task Manager. Open Task Manager, switch to the Processes tab then, in the View menu, choose the Select Columns… option and add GDI Objects:

49307-win7-gdi-objects
Click to enlarge

Hope this helps…

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Nice info Rick, thanks.

Hopefully Ellen has found that this works, in the intervening 8 years 😉

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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Nice info Rick, thanks.

Hopefully Ellen has found that this works, in the intervening 8 years 😉

It was late, I was tired and I’m old. (And missed the original posting date completely… note to self: Must try harder. ROFL)

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