Microsoft is offering a $25,000 bounty for anyone who can increase the size of the Windows Vista taskbar preview. The company says that this will make it easier for users to see what is happening on their screens. ..
THIS CONTEST IS NOW OVER.
So I’ve decided in honor of us hitting the 10k subscriber mark, I’m going to offer $103.15 to the first person that can figure out a way to increase the size of the native preview windows shown here.
Here’s the rules:
Solution can be a registry hack or an application, but must utilize the built-in previews or if it’s a replacement, it must at least use the new window compositing engine. Solution must allow the user to choose the size, either in specific or relative proportions. If the solution is an application, it must be open source so we can all truly enjoy it. If it’s a registry hack then it can’t be published somewhere else first. How-To Geek readers should get to read it first. I don’t want to hear about VisualTooltip or Visual Task Tips. While they are both fine applications, they are made for XP and don’t use the compositing engine, so they are much slower than the built-in previews. Hint: You should be able to watch a video in the preview like you can with the built-in previews. Payment will be either amazon gift card or visa gift card… I have no idea how that works, so I’ll look into it. Submit any entries to me via email.
I’m very interested to see what the community comes up with. Why $103.15 exactly? I dunno, it just felt right. If anybody else would like to pledge money towards this cause, let me know.
Update: Reader Shawn won the bounty by writing in with a link to Vista Thumbnail Sizer, a utility written by Andreas Verhoeven. More details after the jump…
