Via T. Schreiner: In order to bring the menu to the top, you need to adjust or set (if it isn’ there, which, by default, it isn’t) the following registry key to a DWORD value 1 (00000001): [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\WebBrowser].
Via enhanceIE.com (via jsalpha2): To make the search box disappear, you need to adjust or set [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\InfoDelivery\Restrictions] to a DWORD value 1 (00000001). For my SP2 level XP installation, all the keys from Microsoft\ onwards had to be created (i.e. the rest of the path wasn’t there by default).
As for the rest of it… well, apparently there’s just no way of removing or even moving the other buttons for favorites’ manipulation and so on. (Yes, I know that if you unlock the toolbar, you can push it to the side, but you can’t chop it off it’s position and move it to, say, the other side of the tab bar, let alone moving it vertically.)
Wait a minute, you need to tweak the registry in order to customize IE7 toolbars to your liking, and even then you don’t get all that you want?!
You’ve got to be kidding me.
The GUI customization in IE7 is a joke compared to… well, I guess pretty much any other modern browser. Thank goodness there are better alternatives. (I’ll skip the cliché of linking to Firefox or Opera her… d’oh!)