Is there any way to completely disable the taskbar in Windows 10 Home? I have a C# app that I want to display fullscreen on clients' displays without any sign of it running on Windows. It's supposed to run on startup and display a website.
I created a setup that changes most of the Windows settings via registry, like hiding desktop icons and altering logon view, but the taskbar remains visible. Auto hide doesn't satisfy me, because after the system boots the taskbar is still visible until you actually click somewhere on the desktop, and it takes a while for my app to run. I'd really appreciate some help.
When explorer is running, there taskbar will always be visible in some kind (even if it's a small border).
If you want to achieve something like a digital signage solution, you may replace the shell. Changing the shell will also provide some other benefits (most popups / balloontips won't occur anymore).
Be aware that this configuration is effective for all users on the system.
Path to the shell is available at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon\Shell
Update:
Just to hightlight:
It is indeed possible to have custom shells per user (see comments).
This is done by specifying a custom location of the shell path that is located in the registry for a given user.
Yes, you can totally disable the taskbar in Windows 10 but it is only temporary until you hover your mouse around the taskbar area.
Here's a tutorial: how to hide the taskbar in Windows 10
I have an application I've written for Windows 7/8 which relies heavily on the new taskbar features - jumplists, taskbar overlays, thumbnail previews, etc. Users are instructed to pin the application to get the most out of it.
Every now and then I release an update for this application and during the upgrade process, when the old EXE is removed and the new one installed, the pinned application will lose its icon -- it becomes the default generic file icon.
From what I can tell, it's a simple icon caching problem, and rebooting the machine or restarting explorer will bring the icon back.
I can have my installer ask the user to reboot the machine after each upgrade, but ideally I'd like to find a way to avoid the icon being lost in the first place. The most brutal approach which would definitely work would be to terminate explorer.exe, but that's not ideal either.
I'm using InstallShield LE for the installer, so a lot of the "hard work" is done for me, but this also limit my options. I know I can execute scripts/programs at certain points during the install though.
How can I avoid the icon being lost, or otherwise programatically force windows 7 to refresh the pinned taskbar icons?
Decided to reboot after each update.
In my WPF application, I had to set a systray icon. It's a business application which will be used every days.
In win 7(maybe vista, i don't know), Some icons can be hidden, displayed only when notifications, always displayed. Is it possible to indicate directly that my systray icon has to be always displayed? Otherwise, my customer will have to set this on every workstation it installs this program
Thank you!
This is not supported. You can see Raymond thoughts on this.
I'm new to windows programming (any win 32 API).
I want to create a windows application that listens to the clipborad all the time and reacts to keyboard shortcuts (for example you copy text from the ClipBoard and press Ctrl-F and something is done on the text in the clipboard).
I know how to make a window app in win32 and in C# (.NET) but it's a windowed application which has a window and appears in the window panel.
I want an pplication that will only be visible in the taskbar right part so you can close it (like most antivirus do) and keeps on running from start will it's closed.
Anyone got some code template, or can reffer me to a tutorial ? i don't mind if it's C\C+ or C#.
10x.
It can be another windows application in which the form's ShowInTaskbar property is set to false and you add a NotifyIcon component to put it into tray. Here is an article from CodeProject. You can find many more on codeproject or on other programming related sites.
You may find this useful, although it's in C.
Or this in C#.
I wan't to customize the icon displayed within the windows 7 taskbar.
When my app is running, I can do it by changing main window icon but, when the app is pinned, the exe's icon is displayed.
How can I set the taskbar icon for my app to an icon different from the one embedded within the exe ?
Not tried, this solution may work but looks dirty.
Edit :
Our app is compiled once but depending on config file, features are enabled or not so it's a product or another. We do not want to compile one exe for each product.
The solution above may not work as many instances of my app can be installed in different pathes (so you end up with the same exe file name but different icons!), is this registry key poorly designed or am I missing something?
EDIT The info below is a bit obsolete; all new Windows 7 bits are now available as a managed API, available here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WindowsAPICodePack
There is a series of articles on the new Taskbar API by the debugging guru Sasha Goldshtein. You should have a look at the Overlay Icons and Progress Bars API.
You can download the sample code from Windows 7 Taskbar Developer Resources on Microsoft Code. What you're looking for is the IMClient sample:
The IMClient sample demonstrates how
taskbar overlay icons and taskbar
progress bars can light up an
application’s taskbar button instead
of relying on an additional dialog or
on an icon in the system notification
area (tray).
(source: microsoft.co.il)
(source: microsoft.co.il)
(source: microsoft.co.il)
I believe this should help you achieve what you want.
When you pin an application to the TaskBar, it simply creates a shortcut in the following directory:
C:\Users\<User Name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar
You should be able to identify where the shortcut is (ie, get KnownFolders and work from there. UserAppData should be the one), and then using P/Invoke (IShellLink), you can alter the icon that the shortcut is setup to use. The machine might need a reboot for this to take effect, but it should work.
If you hold down Shift while right-clicking on the pinned application, and select Properties, you can see the Change Icon button for the shortcut. This is basically what you need to emulate with code.
All of these things can definately be done with code, but whether you think they're any better than the registry setting is up to you.
You can do this by using the library called "Windows 7 Bridge" which is based on the "Windows Vista Bridge".
These are managed wrappers around all the Vista and Windows 7 native functions.
More info can be found here
I don't know if I'm understanding your problem but..
If you create an application and put the icon property of the main window, that icon will appear in the taskbar also. But, if you pin-it to the taskbar, that icon dissapear. Am I right? If so, go to the project properties and in the application tab, put the icon that you want for the exe. Now, you will see that icon in the taskbar when pinned.
I Use the same icon for both things :P
As far as I can tell, for some reason you can't change the icon for a program that's already pinned to the taskbar. To do it, just unpin the program, locate it in the start menu, right click - properties - change icon. then re-pin it to the taskbar, and it will have the new icon!
Have a look at this blog. He does a series of blog posts about programming the Windows 7 taskbar, so maybe that will point you in the right direction.
I can't test this right now unfortunately, but perhaps just creating a regular, good old shortcut might solve the problem? Create a shortcut to the app, change the icon, then pin the shortcut instead of the app itself?
Will check when I can next get access to my Windows 7 machine...
Right click on the pinned icon, in the popup you see the programs title, there right click again and go to properties. There you are able to change the icon by clicking on the button
"change icon". For me it needed a reboot to finish the changes.
If you want to have a shortcut in the taskbar that goes directly to somewhere useful, such as your "My Documents" directory. The easy fix . . .
Drop a folder into the taskbar ( which creates a shortcut to images ). Navigate to the directory where that shortcut was placed, right click on the shortcut and select "properties" to change the target. Select the "general" tab to change the name of the shortcut. The shortcut was placed here:
C:\Users[user]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar
You can navigate to this directory and edit the properties of the "images" shortcut.