High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In computing, a taskbar is a bar displayed on a full edge of a GUI desktop that is used to launch and monitor running applications. Microsoft incorporated a taskbar in Windows 95 and it has been a defining aspect of Microsoft Windows`s graphical user interface ever since. Some desktop environments, such as KDE and old versions of GNOME, include a more configurable taskbar. Other operating systems may use different methods for task management or application launching such as a panel or a dock.