Probably one of my most valuable tweaks which I discovered completely by accident.
This tweak makes use of the (much under utilized/ under appreciated/despised) links folder within favorites.
1)Right click on your bottom taskbar, select toolbars and choose links.
2)drag the links partition OFF the taskbar (hold mouse down over the toolbar and drag it off)
3)This will create a menu/folder view of links. Right click on this folder and choose to open folder. Get rid of all the existing junk links in here. Create a new folder in here and put either valuable links or shortcuts to applications/software inside. Add shortcuts to apps directly in the links folder. Close this folder when done.
4)Drag the links menu/folder to either the top of the screen or to either side. This will dock the menu.
5)Right click on your new docked toolbar and select view->small icons, check always on top and auto-hide (as desired)
This creates a new navigation menu with drop down menus that you can access by moving ur mouse to the left/right side of the screen.
note 1 - Shortcuts to folders will launch that folder in a new window as opposed to displaying a drop down menu
note 2 - you can create new toolbars and dock them to the other side of windows however the drop down feature only works within the links folder. If you figure out how to enable this within any toolbar please post. If you figure out how to make these navigation bars transparant (in xp) let me know.