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
Related
We are creating an application(must be UWP for Microsoft app store). The application will remain running and we want to “hide” the UI from the desktop after they log in (not in taskbar). We want to put it somewhere where they can see the status of the application and/or logout (like a VPN or Anti-virus app shows status).
We have investigated using systray (non existent in uwp), quick actions tray (seems to be for system applications), notifications (show status there, but user can remove it—looking for something like the Action Center buttons for Wifi). Our goal is to have an application running, but out of the way, with access to the status and logout functionality. What is the Microsoft approved way? If there is no such approved way, how have you solved this?
At this point, that's not supported in UWP.
You can however publish WPF applications to the Microsoft Store using Desktop Bridge. I haven't touch it, but I've seen a few apps in the store running more elevated access than UWP and you may have the ability to control the visibility of the application's icon (ie taskbar/systemtray).
Give it a try and let us know if it works.
You're right, but there are some workarounds that can be used:
1. USING THE DISMISSED EVENT to show the notification again if user dismissed it.
2. UWP APP WITH SYSTRAY EXTENSION
As explained in this blogpost, you can add a component that will create the tray icon.
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.
I've created WinCE 6.0 image without taskbar. So all app's maximized to full screen.
I want create my own app like taskbar. I want add only few buttons to this taskbar. But I want That other app in their maximized mode don't hide this task bar. And I don't want make my all top most, because they hide some part of other app.
How can I make my app like task bar?
You could modify the existing taskbar in the current Explore shell (source at %WINCEROOT%\PUBLIC\SHELL\OAK\HPC\EXPLORER\TASKBAR\taskbar.cpp or is that's not flexible enough, you could create your own Shell and create your own "taskbar-like" behavior however you'd like.
In either case, remember to clone the code to your own BSP tree! Don't modify the public tree.
The approach I've taken and works is to write a custom kiosk shell based on the explorer.exe code built in visual studio. You could use platform builder as well, kind of the same tool now a days. Looking back I'd say it was a bit heavy handed and it took a little bit of refactoring to CTaskBar and explorer to subclass CTaskBar to our needs, but it produced a shell that we could lock and unlock with complete explorer capabilities. Perhaps a lighterweight approach would be to register your app's window as the taskbar (sorry the system call escapes me) and handle the taskbar specific messages in your winproc?
we would like to build a screensaver that shows the desktop and the running applications but prevents user input by showing the login screen. The idea was to build a windows app with no window or a transparent window. However, as soon as the screensaver gets activated the desktop and all applications are hidden from the screen.
Is it possible to start the screensaver without hiding the desktop?
Thx,
bja
Is it possible for you to implement this as something other than a screensaver? I'm assuming that the Windows API does have a method that allows you to tell how long the computer has been idle (otherwise, how does the stuff that manages screensavers do it?), so if you use that you could just set up your application such that it's continuously running as a background process, and will pop up a modal dialog box (or your idea of a transparent window) or something that prompts for the user's login info when the computer has been idle for a certain amount of time.
Why can't you just grab an image of the screen when the SS kicks off. Then use that as the backdrop of your SS.
Vista has a bubbles screen saver that just starts putting bubbles on the screen. Not sure how they do it.
You are better off just creating a full-screen application with a transparent window that starts up on a timer like a screensaver. The screensaver functionality while similar to what you are doing, functions much differently.
As an alternative suggestion, you could always use a service (or background app) to gather the information you want these monitoring tools to display, or even just to grab periodic screenshots of the (hidden) desktop, and then have your screensaver query that app to get the data it needs to display.
That way, you get the benefit (the secure desktop, the usual Windows login sequence, etc.) of a screensaver, but still get to display what you need to.
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.