System Tray Icons and System Tray Icon Software for Windows

PBBalloon & PBTray
$129 - Perfection Bytes

PBBalloon Component includes an ActiveX OCX and DLL, to show XP-style balloon messages in ANY Windows version, show system tray icons and get their location on the screen.

PBBalloon was designed specifically for developers who wish to use balloon messages in their programs. Balloon messages were introduced by Microsoft as an API in Windows XP, but thanks to PBBalloon, it is not necessary to know API, and the messages can be used in Windows 95/98/NT/Me/2000/XP/Server 2003.

PBBalloon & PBTray can even be used to add Balloon tooltips to your applications, giving them a professional look when running under any Windows version.

TrayIcon object it's included to display icons in the system tray. It includes the ability to detect the system tray Icon position on the screen, and if the icon is hidden under Windows XP/2003 Server or higher. Download now.

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Window Magician
$19.95 - Delta-Z Software

Imagine, that your boss comes into your office when you are having a chat with your friend or reading news on the news site. What will be his reaction if he sees what you're doing? How do you think? And what happens with your career after that?

Do you like people who look from behind your back to your display and get information?

Are these well-known problems? How can you counteract them? We know a way out.

Use Window Magician!

It can hide windows, icons in the system tray, shut down applications or run your screensaver by pressing one hotkey. Then you can also restore the previous state of your screen.
If you leave you computer unattended, Window Magician can perform such actions by timeout and saves your information from the evil-wisher's view.

You can add the applications from the running processes or file on the disk to be hidden and change their behavior: to shut down, to hide their windows, to hide their system tray icons.

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SD WinHider
$19.95 - SysDevSoftware

With SD WinHider you may show, hide and manage any window or system tray icon apperance, control windows transperency, set or change windows icons, titles and so on.
Software allows to free your desktop space for more windows, change windows attributes to fit specific use, hide not required or rarely used tray icons.

The software allows:
# Hide/restore any window on your desktop;
# Hide/restore system tray (shell notification area) icons;
# Make any window visually transparent and/or transparent for mouse input;
# Replace title or icon of any window;
# Fast window hide (by pressing both left and right mouse buttons over window);
# Specify rules to perform task above automatically for any new window.

It may start with windows, process embedded rules to specify behaviour for any specific window and allow to set specific title, icon and transparency with style keeping even after program or Windows is restarted. Rules to hide system tray icons allow not show any tray icon even after program or Windows is restarted

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ObjectDock
$0 - Stardock Systems

ObjectDock is a program that acts as both a task manager and a program launcher. It lets you organize your short-cuts and running tasks onto an extremely customizable dock that sits on your desktop. Users can customize the look of each item on the dock and set various animation options for when the mouse is over an item on the dock. It is very easy to configure. Tired of hundreds of icons scattered all over your desktop? Finding it difficult to navigate through the many items listed in your Start Bar? Just want a new tool that looks good and reacts in a pleasing way when you interact with it? ObjectDock is a necessary program for everyone ? and it?s free! As in, no spyware, no adware and it never expires.

Features of ObjectDock (free version) include:

-Put short-cuts on your dock
-Display running tasks on your dock
-Put docklets on your dock
-Icons zoom on mouse-over
-Change the appearance of the icons of running tasks and short-cuts
-Position dock on any edge of the screen
-Optionally represent running programs by snapshot of their window
-Optionally hide Windows taskbar
-Skinnable

Newer features include Windows Vista compatibility, a new image searching feature, .DockZip support, a new algorithm for zoom docks, drag and drop support for items on docks, tabbed docks rotate automatically when docking them with a screen edge if necessary, and a host of mouse-over activation features. Version 1.9 is a major update over 1.5 that features faster performance while using less memory, a changed default look and icons, a new start menu docklet, options for dock placement that is completely free-form, updated user interface for easier use, more Vista support, and more!

Extra features in ObjectDock Plus ($19.95) include: Tabbed Docks, Multiple Docks, System Tray support, Custom icons for system tray icons, Fly-out menus, Smart edge docking, Taskbar grouping, Multi-monitor support, and tons of customization features.

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Aston
$29.95 - Gladiators Software

Aston Shell is a flexible and powerful Desktop replacement application, which lets you save your computer's resources while giving your Desktop a unique look. Aston completely replaces your old Desktop with a new one, providing numerous additional features and saving computer resources for more necessary tasks. By installing Aston, you acquire a lot more than just a fancy look, you get a more efficient way of using your computer. Aston looks similar to the Desktop you're already familiar with, but its components offer much more functionality:

-Toolbars (side panels on the left and on the right sides of the screen) offers easy access to the documents, applications and web links you need the most.
-Multi-state Taskbar buttons let you know exactly if a certain window is active or minimized (they are also adapted to the width of the Taskbar and are thus easier to manage: no precious screen space is wasted.)
-Aston Quick launch Panel can be as small as a single button: you get easy access to your shortcuts without turning the Taskbar into a garbage dump.
-You can hide and restore System Tray icons with a single click or a keystroke.
-Keep your Desktop clean: use the Panel plug-in to organize your files without turning the Desktop into a dumping ground.
-Desktop icons can be of any size, any form (thanks to alpha-blending) and can be animated as well. Standard limitations are gone!
-Aston Disks and the Recycle Bin let you visually monitor their fill states.
-Multi-monitor support.
-A built-in Hotkey Manager makes your work with Aston even more pleasant and effective.

Whether you have a five year old PC or a powerful high-end system, Aston is always the right choice. Aston, running with its most feature packed eye candy Themes, usually consumes about half the RAM that Windows XP Desktop normally needs and gives you much more in return. Aston is already known to be one of the most stable Windows shells ever.

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SysTrayX
$29 - XDESKSOFTWARE

SysTrayX is designed to maximize the way you can use your system tray and is doing that with a few important features :
- SysTrayX helps you hide some of the less used icons from the system tray - the hidden icons can still be seen and used in the special SysTrayX menu but will no longer permanently take precious space from your system tray;
- provide recovery for those icons if anything happens to the system tray;
- SysTrayX can also keep the tray icons sorted in a constant order.

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