Minimize any window to system tray using Windows Hook

If there are some applications you have to run during your work, but need to minimize them to the Task Bar, make your Task Bar become "dirty". This utility will minimize them to the System Tray.

Introduction

There're times when your desktop becomes "dirty" because there're many applications running. Among them, there're some you have to let run during your work (E.g.: I have to let the MS Outlook run all the time). If you minimize them, they will make your task bar crowded. I chose to minimize them to the system tray for my own convenience. So, I decided to write a tiny utility to make all windows minimized to the system tray.

How To?

To solve my problem, I have to answer the following questions:

How to make a particular window be minimized to the system tray?
How to make any window to accept my command (minimized it to system tray)?

The first question is not very difficult. There're many articles about this topic. The second question is not very difficult either. I just use Windows Hooks to intercept some Windows messages when a window menu (system menu) of a window is being displayed, then I append a menu item of my own into this window menu. When a user choose this menu item, Windows will send a message to that hooked application, I intercept this message again, and minimize the application to the system tray. When a user clicks on an icon in the system tray of a hooked application, Windows will send a message to that application, I intercept this message again, and restore that application window, and remove its icon from the system tray. That's all. I have commented so much in my source code, so you can read and understand it easily.

Open Issues

When you exit or disable this utility while there is any application minimized to the system tray, those application will not be restored properly, you must restore all hooked applications before you exit or disable this utility. I'll fix this defect in future, but if someone has any idea about this issue, please share it with me.
If you find any improvement or suggestion, please let me know.

Thank you for reading my article!

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here

About the Author

Chau Nguyen

Web Developer

United States

Member

Article Top

Poor

Excellent

Add a reason or comment to your vote: x
Votes of 3 or less require a comment

Comments and Discussions

You must Sign In to use this message board. (secure sign-in)

Search this forum
	Profile popups Noise Layout Per page

anybody know how to track clicks to the upper left icon

RogerPack

9:52 30 Mar '09

Anybody know how to tell if they clicked on the upper left "menu" icon instead of the title bar?
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Re: anybody know how to track clicks to the upper left icon

RogerPack

10:36 7 Apr '09

You can do it by tracking "how close that click was to the upper left hand corner" i.e. GetCursorPos compared with the windows edge.
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Re: anybody know how to track clicks to the upper left icon

RogerPack

8:20 23 Apr '09

Here's the code for how to do it using a "hot key" (within autohotkey) http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/scripts/MinimizeToTrayMenu.htm[^]
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Can I handle events other than "Tray Me"?

'¯`°²¤ zee ¤²°`¯'

12:51 6 Sep '07

Great Article! Got 5 from me. I want to send window to tray when it is minimized. Can this be done using your hook? What message will I receive when a window is minimized? Thanks in advance Regards, zee
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

just what I wanted.

guoxu

15:54 31 Aug '07

thanks gb
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Thx

xgo

2:28 20 Mar '07

Thanx for this, very nice
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Window movement restriction

AKG

21:59 20 Feb '07

Hi, I am working on an application which can restrict notepad application from moving. For that, I am writing a HOOK dll and using WH_CALLWNDPROC to trap WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGED & WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGING messages. As per the MSDN we can not modify the message in WH_CALLWNDPROC hook. Is there any way to restrict a window(Notepad, Word, IE) movement ? Regards Anuj
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Thanks

mike347

21:53 11 Feb '07

Nice liitle utility, just what I wanted.
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Simple and Neat

SRV_Bala

1:38 27 Sep '06

This simple and neat utility basically does what i wanted and only that!! Thanks. SRV
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Adds multiple "Tray Me" entries [modified]

gondola

12:02 7 Aug '06

It seems to be related to the nView menu that nVidia installs with its video drivers. Every time the nView menu pops up, a new "Tray Me" pops up into the System menu.

I can disable the nView menu since I don't use it, but this may get problematic over a long session with an application (days).

Oh, forgot to add - great little app. Thanks for writing it!

-- modified at 18:03 Monday 7th August, 2006

Thankyou

rimblock

14:02 18 Jul '06

I have searched for days (it feels like months) to find an example of hooking messages in other process's windows (not just mouse and keyboard, like everyone else seems to be obsessed with). You may have just saved my sanity James Randle.
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Thank you!

chick80

22:57 31 May '06

I was browsing the site to get some example to do something like this... and I found it ready to use! Thanks a lot! Really useful!
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

C# Example

XWreckage

6:39 24 May '06

Could you provide me with a C# version of this? I'm still pretty new and am having a hard time understanding the code here.
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink	2.89/5 (7 votes)

"Free minimized windows" suggestion

anat0lik

4:55 15 May '06

HookDll.dll:Hooks.cpp
It appeared that share section has "g_iLastIndex" that is not actual. I have added SWM_TRAYUNINSTALL message and moved "free minimized windows" code to InitMenuHookProc.
A. Sakhno 2006/05/15
Summary of changes can be found below:



#pragma data_seg(".SHARE")

	HHOOK			g_hInitMenuHook = NULL;

	HHOOK			g_hMenuCommandHook = NULL;

	WNDDATA			g_listWnd[255];

	UINT			g_iLastIndex = 0;

	UINT			SWM_TRAYMSG = 0;

UINT			SWM_TRAYUNINSTALL = 0;	

#pragma data_seg()



BOOL APIENTRY DllMain( HANDLE hModule, 

                       DWORD  ul_reason_for_call, 

                       LPVOID lpReserved

					 )

{

...

SWM_TRAYUNINSTALL= RegisterWindowMessage("MY_HOOK_UNINSTALL");

...

}

.....



BOOL WINAPI UnInstallHook()

{

	BOOL bSuccess = FALSE;

	// send a message to free all minimized windows

	// broadcast message is not a best way, but it works...

	// A. Sakhno

	SendMessage(HWND_BROADCAST,SWM_TRAYUNINSTALL,NULL,NULL);

	// unhook InitMenu

	bSuccess = UnhookWindowsHookEx(g_hInitMenuHook);

	if(!bSuccess){

		return FALSE;

	}

	

	// unhook MenuCommmand

	bSuccess = UnhookWindowsHookEx(g_hMenuCommandHook);

	if(!bSuccess){

		return FALSE;

	}

	

	return TRUE;

}

...



LRESULT CALLBACK InitMenuHookProc(int nCode, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)

{

	// return immediately if system required

    if (nCode < 0){

        return CallNextHookEx(g_hInitMenuHook, nCode, wParam, lParam); 

	}

 

	// get window procedure struct

	CWPSTRUCT *wps = (CWPSTRUCT*)lParam;

	if (wps->message == SWM_TRAYUNINSTALL) {		

		for(UINT i = 0; i < g_iLastIndex; i++){

			if(g_listWnd[i].m_bMinimized){

				Shell_NotifyIcon(NIM_DELETE, &g_listWnd[i].m_niData);

				ShowWindow(g_listWnd[i].m_hWnd, SW_SHOW);

				g_listWnd[i].m_bMinimized = FALSE;

			}

	}

	}else.....

Anatoly Sakhno

-- modified at 10:58 Monday 15th May, 2006

Re: "Free minimized windows" suggestion

RogerPack

10:39 7 Apr '09

I assume what you mention is the reason that the "free minimized windows" code is commented out--it isn't global so can't track all the windows, in reality. [Making this broadcast message necessary]. Is that right? -=r
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Requires two clicks with many apps like IE, etc

rxxs

14:22 1 Aug '05

On the first mouse click, the system menu is not getting populated with the new "Tray Me" menu item with many applications like Internet Explorer... Why is this happenning, and what can be the solution?
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Not working with XP Media Center Edition?

tiecoon

8:44 4 Jun '05

I am trying this with Windows XP Media Center Edition and it doesn't seem to work - Jus shows a bunch of additional menus for Explorer but not for any other windows. Anybody noticed this?
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Novell GroupWise

meink

11:20 15 Mar '05

This program is great! I just installed it at both home and work.

When I try to tray Novell GroupWise, the "Tray Me" option is disabled. Obviously, I would like to know if anyone has found a workaround, but more interestingly I would like to know how it does this. Could it have something to do with it already extending its popup menu for taskbar right clicks (It has an "always on top" option)? This could possibly be related to why you can't tray CMD windows (they also have a custom menu), although with them you don't even get the "Tray Me" option.

Thanks for you contribution, Chau.

- Xavier

Why doesn't it work with CMD windows?

Rabbej

3:41 12 Feb '05

Why doesn't it work with CMD windows?
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Re: Why doesn't it work with CMD windows?

nosek

3:58 13 Dec '05

Exactly, why?... would be nice to tray some tail -f's
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Re: Why doesn't it work with CMD windows?

kalantir

20:53 12 Nov '07

heh..that was the sole reason i downloaded it. lol. ive tried other programs that also dont work for it.
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

Can't compile code

ShomBando

12:38 29 Dec '04

Hey thanks for the app...

I was trying to compile your code to make some changes, but it gives missing semicolon error in TrayIcon.cpp

// Global Variables:
HINSTANCE hInst; // current instance
NOTIFYICONDATA niData; // notify icon data
HMODULE hInjectDLL = NULL;
BOOL bEnabled = FALSE;

right after HINSTANCE hinst

Basically I was trying to get rid of the tray icon by commenting out the line:

Shell_NotifyIcon(NIM_ADD, &niData);

Let me know if you know what's going on.

Thanks!
Shom
sombando at hotmail dot com

Not working properly in Win98

Somersault60

4:23 6 Dec '04

Tray icon works fine in XP, but in Win98 (tried on several computers) once a program is minimized to the system tray it can't be restored, even with tray icon still running. Have to use ctrl-alt-del to kill the minimized program. Suggestions?
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink

How do I use this App

Franklin5775

4:38 27 Jan '04

Hi, I have the Icon displayed on the Task Bar, but How do I associate my Outlook window(or any other window) to be minimized to the Task Bar.
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink	3.00/5 (2 votes)

Re: How do I use this App

Ash Lux

16:35 18 Apr '04

First, ensure his program is enabled. Then, right click on the program in the task bar and select "Tray Me" to put it in the system tray.
Sign In·View Thread·Permalink	1.00/5 (1 vote)