Replacing the Windows 7 Network Indicator

One of the things missing from Windows 7 is the network activity indicator in the system tray. It's been replaced with a static icon, supposedly to reduce power consumption on laptops and reduce visual clutter.

I'm not sure I believe the first reason, and the second is invalid because it could be left disabled as it was by default in Windows Vista.

Nevertheless, I've written a tiny .NET replacement for the icon. It's not identical - it's more visual than the original icons. It's also configurable so that the two indicators can show disk or disk activity instead of the network, or show error-type conditions - for example, show the light if the CPU is running at more than 95%.

The download is attached to this post - it's a small MSI. It's really an early beta version, but seems to run OK on my Windows 7 workstation and on the Vista development workstation I built it on.

Please post any bugs in the comments!

Published 06-19-2009 21:53 by davidr

Comments

# re: Replacing the Windows 7 Network Indicator

Monday, 22 June 2009 9:47 PM by etienne

hey,

i installed it in win7 but cannot change the configuration, it will crash when clicking ok. is this a bug? :)

# re: Replacing the Windows 7 Network Indicator

Tuesday, 23 June 2009 11:11 AM by davidr

Hi Etienne

Yes, it's a bug. Not quite sure where the bug is yet, but I've seen it a couple of times on other systems.