Left Taskbar

[Kitsune]

With windows, I have a number of programs I use commonly on the left side of the task tar beside the start button.

A person who is usually knowledgeable told me that this loads the programs into the ram like programs on the right side of the task bar and are running in the background.

Is that correct...I understood they were just convenient shortcuts?

[Old Plympto]

With windows, I have a number of programs I use commonly on the left side of the task tar beside the start button.

A person who is usually knowledgeable told me that this loads the programs into the ram like programs on the right side of the task bar and are running in the background.

Is that correct...I understood they were just convenient shortcuts?

As far as I know those icons on the left side of the bar are links and nothing more. Perhaps your friend misunderstood and thought that you were talking about the systray icons on the right side with the clock?

[Executor32]

You understood correctly, the Quick Launch bar is just a convenient place to put shortcuts. I actually purposely overfill mine, with Firefox, Thunderbird, Winamp, and Nero visible, and shortcuts to all my games in the overflow menu. I find it takes far less space than having all my game shortcuts on the desktop.