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Switcher 3.0
A 'Win95/NT4'-like-but-better task-switching bar for Windows (NT/95/3.1)


Other NT hacks: Go3D, ZapGrab and HogWash
You are number one thousand and thirtythree reading this since November 2019!

What Switcher is about

SWITCHER is a taskbar for Windows. It runs under NT, 95 and 3.1 (with Win32s). It was originally written to provide Windows-95-like behavior to my NT 3.x machine. Even though NT4 and Win95 already has a taskbar, you will want to turn that off and run SWITCHER instead, after you've tried it....

The SWITCHER Taskbar

When you run SWITCHER, a taskbar is added at the bottom of the desktop showing a button for each application loaded. It is much smaller and wastes less screen space than the '95 one:
Picture of task buttons

Each button on the taskbar represents a main application window on your screen. Sub-Windows of applications are ignored! On Win3.1 and NT3.x, SWITCHER also manages your icons, and when your application is minimized, SWITCHER always keeps each icon located directly above it's associate SWITCHER button.

Why is it better than Microsoft's taskbar in Win95 and NT4?

The text in each SWITCHER button is displayed in flat black text when the associated window is minimized, and a chiseled "3D" style when it is not (compare the item "Cardfile" with the item "Control Panel" in the illustration above). The active application is "pushed in" ("Fax Manager" in the illustration).

The texts in the SWITCHER taskbar is always sorted alphabetically from left to right. You may also configure the texts using the file SWITCHER.DEF, and define what texts you want to appear in the taskbar for different applications. You can also decide if certain applications should not be shown in the taskbar, or if their icons should be hidden altogether.

The SWITCHER Menu

You may also click the - button. This button pops up the SWITCHER menu. This menu allows you to start any application defined in your Program Manager groups withouth activating Program Manager!!

Picture of the menu

[NEW!] When clicking the button, a menu similar to this appears. Each Program Manager group has it's own line in the menu (with a slide-off menu for the group items). Selected Groups can be excluded from the menu by using the Configuration Dialog, a much requested feature!!

The configuration of SWITCHER is also managed from this menu.

SWITCHER Authors

SWITCHER was written by me, Zap, and my friend Mats "Moonsea" Månhav (check his page for some other nice NT utilities). I wrote the taskbar, he wrote the Program Manager menu and the CFG Dialog. All bugs are his... :-)

Fixes in version 2.6

Fixes in version 3.0


Did you like it? Click here to download it!
SWITCHER was last updated March 1997