Lionel

I look forward to your post. I used the taskbarplus and it returned the quicklaunch bar *but* the bar now always opens with only 3 icons and I have to manually expand it with each reboot. I can not get it remember the settings (i've tried several registry hacks with no joy)

I just ordered it and am waiting the activation key myself.

I ran across this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555525 it may help you (and others) - sadly it didn't help me

Thanks - just read thru that topic. I'd rather not invest the $5 but if that is what it takes. It seems someone should be able to tell which registry setting needs to be fixed.

After doing a clean (didn't do anything advanced) when I reboot the quicklaunch bar has to be re-enabled to show. I tried doing a restore of the backup and got an error (i'm using this on a work laptop xp pro sp2 that is locked down in some areas). I've looked in the registry by doing a search without success to find any key related to quicklaunch. Any suggestions? tia