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Minimize Running Application to Desktop as Thumbnail

Posted By Raymond In Category: Computer

Aug
21
2008

Normally when we minimize a running program or application, it should go down to the taskbar where your Start menu is. Some software are programmed to minimized down to the traybar so it won’t clutter the taskbar when there is too many programs running. There are even third party software that can minimize the program that you want to traybar. (Actually the traybar is NOT called the traybar. I will explain more about it in my future article) As for me, I try to keep as little icon in traybar as possible and also don’t run too many software at once. That is how I maintain my computer as fast as possible when I am using it.

Blank desktop

When I was browsing the Internet today, I stumbled on a pretty interesting software which is able to put thumbnails of your minimized windows on your desktop. We had an interesting topic in forum about sharing how our desktop looks like and I find that a lot of people’s desktop contains very little or no icons at all! This might be a nice tool for those people to put their desktop to use without cluttering their taskbar.


miniMIZE is a small desktop enhancing application that catches windows that you minimize and puts a thumbnail of the main application window on your desktop.

minimize program to desktop as thumbnail

miniMIZE supports exclusion list to ignore windows and applications that you don’t want to minimize to desktop as thumbnail. It also has hotkeys to cycle thumbnail levels, minimize all windows and show/hide thumbnails.

miniMIZE is actually a clone of an application called MINt, started by Kapsules developer Andrew Powell. Unfortunately MINt was discontinued and so the author began work on miniMIZE. However, the last time that miniMIZE was on 26 January 2006 which makes it pretty outdated as well. miniMIZE currently only works on Windows XP and takes up 4.5MB of memory usage.

[ Download miniMIZE ]

For those that is using Windows Vista and would like to try this type of software, here’s another one called ThumbWin and it is developed by a Japanese named Hiro.

Download ThumbWin

ThumbWin’s feature is very much the same as miniMIZE. You can set the software to be excluded from minimizing as thumbnail, supports hotkey, arrangement method and thumbnail size. But one very noticeable feature that only ThumbWin has is the fade-in/out effect. When a running program has been minimized to desktop as thumbnail, moving your mouse over to the thumbnail will make the image fade-in/out. ThumbWin also takes up way lower memory usage (only 1.8MB) compared to miniMIZE.

[ Download ThumbWin ]


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    • Quanzi

      Hey I know that Hiro guy, he\’s the one who created the hLauncher, which is a very useful utility, too :D

      Unfortunately all of his programs has Japanese interface, also does his homepage. :(

      Anyway, great article!

    • Ishaan

      Hey thx raymond..this is really usefull..I’ve been caught many times playing cs in my college..its pretty useful for me…..

    • DruDragon

      I’ve used miniMIZE before, and it’s a nice program.

      Thanks for the alternative for Vista, gonna try it now.

    • http://tech-shinobi.com fr33mumia

      Hye Raymond. currently i’m using PowerMenu 1.5 to minimize running apps to tray. So gonna try this out :D Thanx Raymond for another useful tips.Cheers

    • Moonman

      Hi,

      Would like to try this, seems promising, but no go on my windows 2000 machine. Does anyone know of something similar that runs on 2000 ?

    • bovine

      just to be clear, in your text you say if u have vista u can try thumbwin that is the same but has these better features – so really it seems better, am i missing something?

      to be clear as i say, this is NOT vista only, as you sort of implied, runs great in xp too, so really this is the one to use for everyone!

      lovely tool, thx for the continued great blog ray, i check it every day :)

      bovine

    • bovine

      update – i prefer minimize because it lets you have the windows from bottom right to bottom left, the only option thumbwin doesnt have for some reason?!!

      BOTH of them however really annoy me, as they dont do what i want – that is, when i press windows key + M, which i do all the time to clear all windows to taskbar, they DO NOT go into thumbail!! GRRR weak :(

      also, to make matters worse, on minimize they disappear completely, and dont even appear on taskbar! to get them back you have to alt tab!

      however, this could be great as a bosskey / gf key – they cannot see what is open hehe :) hidden feature lol

      gl

      ps i am running xp sp3

    • Poukuy

      i got a better software which hide another software completely even though the other software still running, this can be used to hide all sort of programs and it use a hotkey system where you can customise to your needs. it minimises but not in the taskbar but in the background it is called plancoin 0.3

      http://downloads.sourceforge.net/wistinga/plancoin-0.3.exe

    • http://extensie.wordpress.com/ Dan S.

      Hey, great software Raymond. although, I personally use Xneat – it has some other useful abilities and it is free, just like this one :)

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