ShyBar - an automatic Windows 7 taskbar hider

Wish that it'd be updated for Windows 8, even though W10 is out.

Any chance for a update?

Several people have run it on Windows 8.1; I tested it briefly as working also. But if you found a particular issue that needs to be addressed then please let me know.

* I am currently not at home for an extended period so any updates will probably take a while.

Hi, I just found this program after 10 minutes of searching and it 99% fulfilled what I needed. If you could lower the Hotspot Sensitivity minimum to 1px and Coolspot Sensitivity to 2px, it would be perfect.

Also, I'm not sure if it caused your program or Windows, but when I'm searching for something in Win Start, the taskbar is hidden and looks kinda weird as the Start is "floating".

Hello pvpbender,

I will definitely look into adding per pixel sensitivity detection. But, as I've explained previously, I am quite busy right now so I don't know when I can implement it.

The floating start menu is a byproduct of the fact that the taskbar and start menu are two different windows objects. I chose to go for less cpu usage by my app rather than having to constantly check for the presence of the taskbar AND the start menu which could affect the performance of other programs/games negatively.

Hey jykelly, I just wanted to let you know I've donated towards the development of the program. I've been using it for windows 10, and I can say it works well, except sometimes the taskbar won't show at all, and the delay can be a bit long (which isn't too bad), even with all Windows Animations turned off. Thanks so much for your work.

Hi AlasShyBar, thanks for the donation and for your kind words. I haven't been able to test ShyBar on Windows 10 much unfortunately. Thanks for the input, those issues are now also on my to-do list once I can get back to coding.

I can't really see myself using this without windows key support. I'd rather just deal with the 1 pixel annoyance than to be required to use the mouse any time I want to see what programs are open, check the time, etc. How has no one brought this up in 9 pages, lol?? Also the added delay is considerable even with zero delay setting.

Hi joe7dust,

The windows key support is a valid issue that I hadn't considered because I don't tend to use that key (because games). I will look into that soon. As for the zero delay, it works perfectly for me on an old i5. Nevertheless, I will also investigate.

Hello everybody. If anyone is interested in helping me test, here is a new beta for ShyBar. 2.6: Dropbox - shybarsetup2.6beta.exe

As it says in the name, this is a beta so there will probably be some bugs in the new features. Let's not pollute the thread with complaints about bugs - send me a private message instead.

1) The installer will be blocked by Windows Smartscreen (you have to click More Info in Smartscreen to get the Run button for the installer). I am looking to get proper Windows Desktop Apps certification for the final version.

2) Per-pixel spot sensitivity is now included and I am 95% sure about this feature.

3) I added in some rudimentary Windows key detection. This one may or may not work yet.


If you don't care about the two new features, please don't download and install this.

I just registered to say that I'd love to be able to try this, but for some reason I'm unable to get it to work. Seconds after launching the program I receive an error message. The message sounds similar to the Avast message:

ShyBar has stopped working

A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Please close the program.

I've tried some of the more obvious things to resolve the issue - reinstallation, restarting, updating windows, diagnostic startup, updating 2013 C++ etc. but the problem persists with only windows programs running. I'm using Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit, Intel i5-2410M, 6GB Ram.

I'd love to know whats causing this problem. How might I troubleshoot it?