How to make taskbar more transparent in Windows 10

Question

I just installed Windows 10 the other day. I came from Linux and am surprised by how uncustomizable Windows is. I want to add more transparency to the taskbar, but I can't figure out how. Is it possible, and if so, how do I do it?

Answer 1

You can use classic shell to do this. There's an option in there that will allow you to make the taskbar transparent to whatever level you want.

Procedure:

1. Download and install Classic Shell (above link)
2. Open 'Classic Start Menu Settings'
3. Check the box labeled 'Show all settings'
4. Click on the tab labeled 'Taskbar'
5. Set a color and opacity

Note: you may want to remove some of the things Classic Shell does by default - doing so shouldn't be too difficult, just look around the settings.

Answer 2

Here are two ways to modify the registry to make the taskbar more transparent:

Method 1

1. Click on the Start Menu and type regedit and hit Enter
2. Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

3. Right-click on the Advanced subkey in the left window pane
4. Go down to New and select DWORD (32-bit) Value
5. Name the new value UseOLEDTaskbarTransparency
6. Now double-click on the value you just renamed
7. In the new window enter 1 in the Value Data field
8. Click OK and then reboot your PC

Method 2

If you don't feel like doing it manually through the registry, you can use a Taskbar Transparency Hack (.reg file) from howtogeek.com that does the exact same thing descrived above but this way you just have to double-click the .reg file contained in the zip download and it will import the key automatically. You will need to reboot after doing this method as well.

Answer 3

I use StartIsBack++ to have more control over the taskbar. In the StartIsBack++ options you can make Taskbar transparent and add blur

to it like in Windows 7