Basically all you have to do is install one of these utilities and a few customizations and you'll have a nice icon dock to quickly access your programs. The programs are called:
Code:
http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/
They are both very similar and both are free.
This is something I use all the time and I absolutely love it, I'm not sure I would be able to use Windows 7 without it now.
I hope that this is helpful someone!,,,,,its very cool I"m using it!!!!!!!
Code:
http://rocketdock.com/