I don’t remember giving you permission to modify my Quick Launch toolbar

This is becoming all too common of a habit for me. Install new software or accept software update. Realize the software added an icon to my Quick Launch toolbar without asking me. Delete the Quick Launch toolbar icon.

If you are not familiar with the Quick Launch toolbar, it usually resides just to the right of the Start button on Windows XP or to the right of the Windows logo button on Windows Vista. More often than not you will see tiny icons for programs such as Internet Explorer, or the “little blue e” as my kids call it, that can be launched just by clicking the icon once.

If you are still unsure what I am referring to, here’s a picture of the Windows Vista Quick Launch toolbar:

I’m not a big fan of loading up programs on the Quick Launch toolbar. In fact, the only icon I tend to keep in my Quick Launch toolbar is the Show Desktop icon. That’s why I don’t appreciate it when software installation programs add icons to my Quick Launch toolbar without asking me first.

It’s not the little guys

And I’m not talking about shareware or otherwise unknown software development companies. I’m talking about big players like Microsoft, Apple and Mozilla. Each of these companies are guilty for adding icons to my Quick Launch toolbar for their respective Outlook, iTunes and Firefox installation programs.

It’s no wonder I go to my client’s homes and I see 10-15 icons on their Quick Launch toolbar. When I ask them whether or not they want them there the usual response is, “I don’t even know what those are.”

So my question to the software developers of the world is this. If so many people have no idea what the Quick Launch toolbar is or how it is used, why do you keep putting icons there without asking us?