In the older versions of Windows (before Windows 7), you could easily hide or minimize the Windows taskbar to free up extra working space on the desktop for Windows. Usually, the extra space makes surfing the internet or watching movies a better experience. Unfortunately, this sometimes does not work in the Windows 7. But you can hide or minimize the Windows 7 taskbar using a third party tool called ShellWin.
The ShellWin tool was created by a Windows enthusiast to work around this problem. Using this small utility, you can hide the Windows 7 taskbar and later show it on demand. You can download the ShellWin tool from ShellWin.zip. The tool is totally portable and does not require any kind of installation. You can just extract ShellWin.exe from this downloaded ZIP file and run it.
ShellWin is a very simple tool with two buttons – Hide and Show which obviously do what they say – hide and show the Windows 7 taskbar. The following image shows what happens when you click on the Hide button.
The magic of this ShellWin tool is that it hides the taskbar but leaves the Start Menu button (blue orb) visible. Using the start menu you can access your computer and various programs. The ShellWin also shows a drop-down menu sing which you can access various open windows when you have hidden the taskbar.