Is It Possible To Show The Taskbar Date On A Single Line In Windows?

Ever wish Windows could show the date like this in the taskbar?

Most people operate Windows using a single-tier taskbar. As most people know, you can make the Windows taskbar any thickness you want, but generally speaking, people want it to be the smallest single-tier size just to stay out of the way. The tradeoff is that when you do that, only the time is shown and not the date.

You can however get the date and time to show up in the taskbar in WinXP, WinVista and Win7 in single-tier taskbar mode using TClock Light.

TClock Light does exactly what you’d expect it to do – show the date next to the time in whatever format you want. I have mine set to [Weekday Day-Month-Year 12H:Minute AM/PM], but you can set yours to however you wish, be it long or short format.

Windows XP

On my netbook which is running the aging WinXP OS and has very limited screen space of only 1024×576, I have to run a single-tier taskbar, so I was pleased as punch when I found TClock and could set it to my liking:

Windows Vista and 7 64-bit

To get this utility for the WinVista/7 64-bit, you have to use T-Clock 2010, which is a rebuild specifically for that environment so you can get this:

The interface is slightly different with different options added in:

For those of you specifically running WinVista or Win7 using the “Classic” theme for that old-school look, and have your taskbar set to “small icons”, this is an example of what you can get it to look like:

So if you’re using the single-tier taskbar, rejoice, because now you have a way to show the date next to the time in any way you’d like.

Get TClock (XP)
Get TClock 2010 (WinVista/7)

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2 thoughts on “Is It Possible To Show The Taskbar Date On A Single Line In Windows?”

Aeblis says:

February 21, 2012 at 10:24 am

While this does like an interesting app, I’d just like to point out that you can also easily see the date using the current single-line format which shows just the time. Just let your mouse cursor hover over the time and a second later, the full date shows up over it like a tooltip. It works on XP, Vista and Win7.

mmseng1 says:

February 21, 2012 at 6:40 am

Awesome I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. I could never bring myself to give up the vertical screen space just for the date on the clock. The font by default in Win7-64 is pretty ugly. I changed it to Verdana, which is similar to the default clock font. I also had to adjust the vertical centering, not sure whether or not that’s because I keep my taskbar on the top. Thanks Rich.

P.S. Just a side note, I use DisplayFusion for a taskbar on my second monitor. T-Clock has no effect on the 2nd monitor’s clock.

mmseng1 says:

February 23, 2012 at 5:10 pm

I take it back. Now apparently (after a reboot maybe) the DisplayFusion taskbar clock’s area has expanded, presumably enough to fit the date. But there is no date, and the time is centered horizontally. So it just takes up a lot more space than it used to, and is centered within that space. I’m not sure if this bugs me enough to do something about it though.

mmseng1 says:

February 23, 2012 at 5:10 pm