Want your Windows XP Taskbar to look like the icons only taskbar in Windows 7? You can accomplish this with a registry hack.
1. Click Start > Run and type REGEDIT. Click OK.
2. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
then Control Panel
then Desktop
then WindowMetrics
3. Right-click WindowMetrics and select New > String Value.
4. Give it a name of MinWidth.
5. Give it a value of -255 (that’s negative 255).
Restart your system, and the programs running in the taskbar will only have icons. This saves a great deal of space on your taskbar.