TaskbarMonitor

A system-monitor strip that docks into the Windows 11 taskbar, just left of the tray:

↓   1.2 MB/s  ↑  88.0 KB/s │ CPU  14%  46°C

It has no background of its own. The text is drawn directly onto the taskbar's acrylic in your Windows accent color, so it reads as part of the taskbar rather than as a window sitting on it. One strip is docked per taskbar, so multi-monitor setups get one on each.

Every field is fixed-width, so the numbers never make the strip jitter as they change — that is where the padding above comes from. Network and CPU are on by default; RAM and GPU are one checkbox away in Settings. The default set is deliberately narrow, because all four fields is about 640 px and reaches back into the centred taskbar buttons on a 1920-wide screen.

Right-click the strip for the menu.

Install

See docs/INSTALL.md for the full guide — requirements, updating and troubleshooting. The short version, from an elevated PowerShell at the repository root:

dotnet publish src\TaskbarMonitor -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained -p:PublishSingleFile=true -o publish
.\deploy\Install-Task.ps1 -StartNow

That publishes a self-contained binary and registers a scheduled task that starts it at logon. If it is already running, Stop-Process -Name TaskbarMonitor -Force first — the running exe is locked and the publish will otherwise fail. CPU temperature additionally needs the PawnIO driver; without it that one field shows --°C and everything else works.

What it shows

Field	Source
Network ↓/↑	64-bit interface counters (GetIfEntry2) on the default-route adapter
CPU %	PDH % Processor Utility — the same counter Task Manager uses
CPU °C	LibreHardwareMonitor via the PawnIO driver (needs elevation)
RAM %	Physical memory in use (GlobalMemoryStatusEx)
GPU % / °C	LibreHardwareMonitor, falling back to nvidia-smi

Network rates come from the adapter that actually carries default-route traffic, which means WSL2 and Docker vEthernet adapters are excluded rather than double-counted.

Configuration

Right-click the strip → Settings… for a settings window with live preview: every change shows on the strip as you make it, Save writes the file and leaves the window open, and Close discards anything unsaved (it asks first). The title shows * while there are unsaved changes. The knobs most people want are there — which metrics to show, theme (auto/light/dark), textColorSource (accent or theme), backgroundAlpha (0 is fully transparent; raise it for a translucent pill) and textShadow.

publish\settings.json sits next to the exe, is created with defaults on first run, and hot-reloads when saved, so hand-editing still works. Advanced → Open settings file opens it in Notepad — it is also the only way to reach pollIntervalMs, sensorIntervalMs and logging, which the window deliberately does not expose. Full table in docs/INSTALL.md § Configuration.

Left-clicks are swallowed so the strip never steals focus from the taskbar; the menu is right-click only.

Building from source

.NET 8 SDK, then:

dotnet build TaskbarMonitor.sln
dotnet test TaskbarMonitor.sln

Never enable trimming — LibreHardwareMonitor resolves sensors by reflection.

tools\NetValidation is a harness for checking network-rate accuracy against a real download. Note that its loopback mode is inconclusive by design: the Windows TCP loopback fast path bypasses the interface counters the app reads.

Project layout

Path	Contents
src\TaskbarMonitor\Positioning\	Taskbar discovery, strip placement, the redock/topmost watchdog
src\TaskbarMonitor\Sensors\	Sampling threads; Sensors\Network\ is the accuracy-critical part
src\TaskbarMonitor\Rendering\	Layered-window surface, text rendering, accent/theme colors
src\TaskbarMonitor\Formatting\	Fixed-width formatters, so the strip never changes width
src\TaskbarMonitor\Settings\	The settings model, its JSON store, and the editing/validation rules
src\TaskbarMonitor\UI\	The settings window
deploy\	Scheduled-task install/uninstall scripts
tests\	xunit tests

CLAUDE.md holds the architecture notes and a list of hard-won platform gotchas worth reading before changing the rendering or positioning code.