Isn’t there a way for me to tell Windows XP that I want a particular window to always remain “on top,” i.e., displaying over any other windows it may overlap?
-FrL-
That’s one of the options for Task Manager.
Under my task manager, when I right-click on applications, I see “switch to” and “bring to front” but no “always on top” or anything equivalent.
-FrL-
Some display drivers include utilities to do this - If you have an ATI graphics card, you can install Hydravision, which gives you multiple desktops, but also the ability to force almost any window to stay on top.
If a program has not implemented the feature to remain on top of others, you can’t ordinarily force it to do so. A programmer could conceivably write a utility to do it, although I’ve never seen such an application. Of course, you run into problems if the user is following security best practices and not logging in with a privileged ID, and even more of a hassle running under Vista, which requires user confirmation of such antics even when running as an administrator.
For the technically curious, under Windows, “topmost” is an attribute that can be assigned to a window that keeps it ahead of non-topmost windows in the Z-order. See the WIN32 SetWindowPos documentation for HWND_TOPMOST for a description.
I use a program called “The Wonderful Icon.” It’s small, resides in the system tray and makes it easy to keep a window on top of all other windows, just right click the icon, select “Always On Top Window” and select your window.
I found some by searching for “always on top” at download.com, then limiting to XP and free. I can’t vouch for any, but it’s worth looking.
I meant that it’s one of the options for Task Manager itself, not an option for an application you can set with Task Manager.
Damn you. I was going to suggest that.
A very useful little program, I’ve found. I use it all the time. As well as the always-on-top feature, I frequently use it as a quick way to reduce the priority e.g. of iTunes when converting files, to stop them from hogging the system and let me work normally with other programs.