A Couple Nifty Windows Utility programs

From time to time I like to share info about neat little utilities I've found. In this posting I'll briefly discuss SysTrayX and WinRoll.


SysTrayX condenses all those little icons in the system tray down into a single icon. You can then right-click that icon to get a menu consisting of all the icons that used to be in the system tray. See their info page to get a better idea of what I'm talking about. You can also configure SysTrayX to continue showing certain icons on the system tray. For example, maybe you leave Trillian or some other app regularly minimized to the system tray that you still want to have quick access to. Or perhaps some kind of monitoring program whose status icon you want visible at all times. You can set it so that it continues to reside in the system tray, while all the other icons are nestled inside SysTrayX.

It also claims to assist in situations where Windows explorer crashes and the icons in the system tray disappear and don't come back. I haven't really had an opportunity to test that, however. But I've been running it for a few days now and it's been nice to not have so much clutter going on down there in the system tray. I've tried using the "hide inactive icons" feature of the task bar to reduce the clutter before, but that just ends up being more trouble than it's worth. SysTrayX really comes in handy.

That said, registration is $27, which seems a little pricey to me for such a relatively small utility. I haven't decided if I want to register it yet or not. I may see if I can find any free alternatives (yes, I'm cheap). If I find something else that does the same job for free (or even a lot cheaper), I'll let you know. Meanwhile, if something like this would be worth $27 to you, you should check it out. You can download a free demo for their site and use it for a couple of weeks to make sure you like it.

I have previously mentioned another little utility program, called FreeShade. It gives you the option of "rolling up" your windows into just the titlebar, instead of minimizing them to the taskbar. This was something that I originally discovered as a feature in WindowBlinds. I really like this feature, but it's probably not for everyone. Anyway, I recently discovered an alternative to FreeShade called WinRoll.

The first thing I like better about WinRoll is that it does a better job at its basic function. I would have problems with FreeShade where occasionally the window would get screwed up after "rolling it up". I would try to restore it, but the window would not return to full size. Instead, the bottom of the window would extend just below the titlebar, and I'd have to manually resize it. This didn't occur every time, but it was often enough to be annoying. Also, FreeShade didn't handle command prompt windows, and WinRoll does. For some reason though, WinRoll still doesn't roll them up completely -- it still shows one line of text from the window. I can live with that though.

WinRoll also sports a few extra features. If you use the middle button on the titlebar, the Window becomes transparent. Probably more of an "eye candy" feature than something useful, but it's kinda neat. Sadly, this does NOT seem to work on command line windows, which is probably where I'd use it most. If you use the middle button on the minimize button, your window will minimize to the system tray instead of the taskbar. Shift-Left Click the titlebar to send the window behind all the other windows. And finally, if you want a Window to "stay on top", click the middle mouse button on the close button.

One of the best things about WinRoll is that it's free! If the "rollup" feature sounds cool to you, I definitely recommend checking it out. Even if you're just curious, give it a whirl ... you've got nothing to lose because (did I mention?) it's free!