My life will never be the same… in a good way.

Let me explain. I am quite… particular… about the way I need my computer set up. Especially when programming.

Upon getting a new PC I spend a few hours organizing things exactly the way I want them. The order of the icons on the quick launch bar. The default Windows (not XP) theme with a gray start bar located at the bottom of the screen. The Start Menu in alphabetical order. Always show all menu items. Never group taskbar windows. And on and on.

This, ahem, fastidiousness, carries on to my daily PC activities. The programs have to be opened in a certain order. Outlook first. Visual Studio next. If web development then one Firefox and one IE window. Then two Windows Explorer windows (not My Computer windows, they are not the same).

I have a workflow, and I need to stick with it. If I don’t have the windows in the right order, it takes time to find the right window, and that’s a problem.

But, occasionally, one of the applications crashes. Outlook hangs, or Visual Studio freezes up. Until today, my only option was to close down all of the applications and start over. It’s that important to me. (I know, they make medication for that.)

Enter Taskix. A lightweight utility that allows you to drag and reorder taskbar items. This is revolutionary. It’s mind blowing. It makes me happy. Taskix has a very small footprint (about 600K of RAM) so it runs quitely in the background.

As a bonus, it allows you to close windows by middle clicking on the window in the taskbar.

Download it. Love it. Give the guy some money.

And thanks to Zee for the hint.