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Is there a way to "hide" a normal windowed application in Windows?

I'm looking for something that removes it from the taskbar and possibly puts an icon in the system tray instead.

Specifically, I am looking for something that works in Windows XP.

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Well there's ones that retain the icon, or ones that use a "special" icon to "hide" the program from people (so when you hit the key combo to hide it, it's called the "Boss Key" :P ). That way nobody knows what the application is - it may look like a networking icon. And requires a password to restore. – Breakthrough Sep 18 '09 at 11:40
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3 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

TrayIt

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Pitaschio

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Auto Window Manager

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TaskSwitchXP

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Take your pick. They all minimize applications to the system tray. They're all free and work with Windows XP.

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Quite a few gems in your answer! Nice apps :) – alex Sep 18 '09 at 10:59
yep, TayIt does just that, the others offer a a whole rake of more or less useful features. – Molly7244 Sep 18 '09 at 11:14
Just installed TrayIt; it's a really nice app, especially the ability to remember to minimize an application to the system tray. – alex Sep 18 '09 at 13:10
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unfortunately, None of these are able to hide a window's taskbar icon without minimizing it. – Bruce Connor Oct 19 '09 at 5:11
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up vote 5 down vote

I use Process Manager for this. It has a lot of other options besides putting an app in the system tray, but I use this the most.

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up vote 2 down vote

Try the open-source tools Minime and RBTray to minimize a Windows application to the system tray and hide it from the taskbar.

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