TrayIt! is a nifty tool for Windows 95/98/Me, NT/2000/XP. It lets you save Taskbar space for minimized windows by creating a small icon, for each application you apply to it, in the System Tray (The System Tray is the area is located near the Windows Clock).

All you need to do is start trayit1.exe, which becomes an invisible process on your machine, and then press and hold the Ctrl button on your keyboard whenever you minimize an application window. Instead of minimizing the application to your Taskbar, showing a rectangle with the application’s icon and title bar description, you’ll just see the application’s icon in the System Tray. You can then maximize the window by clicking the icon.

TrayIt’s Web site says: “this is particularly useful for background tasks you typically keep running on your PC all day long like your favorite E-mail client, Real Player, etc..” But, for myself anyway, I have a more important use for this tool: What I do is load Trayit! onto my USB drive that I take everywhere with me for use as an external hard drive. I plug this USB drive into computers that aren’t mine, such as my sister’s family room computer whenever I’m over at her place. Then I launch Trayit! from my USB drive which runs invisibly on her computer until the computer is reboot. Every time I run an application that I don’t want closed by another family member using the computer when I’m away, I minimize it with Trayit! before I leave. Now my young nieces won’t close any windows I have open that are perhaps performing a long download, system scan, or whatever, while I’m away. Very handy.

One issue I’ve come across is that some applications, such as mIRC, already implement a special feature when you hold the Ctrl key while minimizing the window (doing so in mIRC allows you to set a temporary password). This shouldn’t be a problem, as Trayit! should still minimize the application properly after your particular application runs it’s special feature.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 8:51 am and is filed under Developer, Main, Task Manager, USB, Utilities, Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.