SageTV and Windows 7, taskbar is really annoying.

[lash]

I actually don't know if this is SageTV or Windows 7. Last windows desktop OS I used was windows XP SP1. If I had to guess, I would guess its Windows 7 that is being a pain. There is a really annoying interaction between SageTV and the Windows 7 taskbar.

There is no option I can find to set the taskbar to "not on top". So the choice is the default and auto hide.

The default is basically always on top no matter what. So SageTV is loaded and the darned taskbar is still there.

Auto hide is even more annoying. When SageTV is launched, the taskbar pops up and the SageTV icon "glows" in the taskbar and it won't go away till you mouse click in the sagetv window somewhere.

I bought a tiny PC that came with Windows 7 to run SageTV client. I don't have any other Windows version. The computer I am using for SageTV client has no real mouse (it came with a wired mouse), I can't make it go away. Even if I bought a wireless mouse, it would still be really annoying.

Anyone experience this and figured out a way to fix this? The best I figured out was if I kill explorer.exe, I have no taskbar anymore, but that causes other problems. I am far from a Windows expert, so there must be a better way that I am missing.

Thanks!

[SWKerr]

I believe this will help.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42998

[49studebaker]

The "Keep the taskbar on top of other windows" option has been disabled in Windows 7.

See:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/...b-8780d608c45f

[lash]

Thanks guys!

Originally Posted by SWkerr

I believe this will help.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42998

I believe that refers to a problem with font scaling. I am not scaling (though I didn't know I could do that, which would make viewing on a TV easier). I am currently just setting the PC up and its hooked in to a normal LCD computer monitor.

The problem with the taskbar is that once an application is launched, the taskbar pops up and glows till you click the mouse. Once you click the mouse the task bar does go away. This is the behavior for auto-hide or default. Both options produce the same bug. I am planning on not using a mouse, just the MCE remote and occasionally a bluetooth keyboard for mobile phones, to do text entry.

Originally Posted by 3dOptics

The "Keep the taskbar on top of other windows" option has been disabled in Windows 7.

See:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/...b-8780d608c45f

Yikes, that is plain daft to remove that option .

Seems my only option is to hook a mouse up or kill explorer.exe, huh? Is there a way to assign a mouse click to the MCE remote?

[mayamaniac]

It only glows if you launch SageTV and while its loading, you take focus away from SageTV either by clicking on the desktop or switching to another window or application. From my experience, if I launch SageTV and not take focus away from it, the icon in the taskbar doesn't glow. But then I'm launching SageTV with a mouse, how are you launching SageTV with the remote?

[lash]

The plugin "SageTV Launcher" allows me to launch SageTV with the green button on my remote. Though, actually, I am also using a mouse at current, as I am still setting up the little media PC like a desktop computer. When it is in operation, I hope to use only the green button to launch SageTV client.

In trial runs with it, the taskbar glows when launching with SageTV Launcher.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by lash

The plugin "SageTV Launcher" allows me to launch SageTV with the green button on my remote.

Use my software LM Remote KeyMap (see signature) instead of SageTV Launcher. You'll be able to launch SageTV and ensure it got focus. If this doesn't work (I'm sure it will not work), you can also set it up to wait for SageTV main window and do a mouse click, putting back SageTV into focus and problem solved (I do this on my XP pc because sometimes the taskbar is in front of SageTV when launched no matter what...)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[lash]

Wow that looks like a very comprehensive program. Thanks I will give it a try!

[lash]

That seems to be working StephaneM, thank you very much!

[eopian]

I have PDVD9 setup to run as an external program that sleeps sage while PDVD is running, then wakes up when I close PDVD. When Sage wakes back up, the windows taskbar is visible (even though sage is full screen) and doesn't go away automatically (which is annoying because I don't generally have a mouse or keyboard on this client... remote and TV only). I never had this issue with XP. The taskbar isn't an issue if I put it to sleep and wake it up manually using the remote.

Does anybody know how to get the taskbar to disappear when Sage wakes up on Win7 after using PDVD?

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by eopian

I have PDVD9 setup to run as an external program that sleeps sage while PDVD is running, then wakes up when I close PDVD. When Sage wakes back up, the windows taskbar is visible (even though sage is full screen) and doesn't go away automatically (which is annoying because I don't generally have a mouse or keyboard on this client... remote and TV only). I never had this issue with XP. The taskbar isn't an issue if I put it to sleep and wake it up manually using the remote.

Some application do this (PDVD, XBMC...) they somehow when they exit don't give the focus back as they should.

The only solution is to handle this with your remote sofware (if you use one). For instance with LM RKM you can either adds an action to do a mouse click under the button used to close PowerDVD (you may also don't need to do anything with LM RKM as I added a check for focused window that indeed re-focus the window that should be focused when no window have the focus).

The "mouse click" is somehow the best way to handle this (Alt + Esc could also work)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

Use my software LM Remote KeyMap (see signature) instead of SageTV Launcher. You'll be able to launch SageTV and ensure it got focus. If this doesn't work (I'm sure it will not work), you can also set it up to wait for SageTV main window and do a mouse click, putting back SageTV into focus and problem solved (I do this on my XP pc because sometimes the taskbar is in front of SageTV when launched no matter what...)

Regards,
Stéphane.

SageTV Launcher isn't as granular, but has a very similar feature where it hands focus to Sage and then simulates a mouse click to force focus.

The location of the simulated click is configurable though (default is the middle of the screen).

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by eopian

Does anybody know how to get the taskbar to disappear when Sage wakes up on Win7 after using PDVD?

Or just set the task bar to auto hide, or unlock it and drag it below the screen.

[eopian]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

Or just set the task bar to auto hide, or unlock it and drag it below the screen.

I already have it set to auto hide which doesn't work in this instance. I think next I'm just going to unlock it and hide it manually as I don't use it that often and I do have a bit of overscan so I wont see the remnants at the bottom. I was hoping to avoid this though.

Thanks for your help everyone... at least I'm not the only one with this problem.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by eopian

I think next I'm just going to unlock it and hide it manually as I don't use it that often and I do have a bit of overscan so I wont see the remnants at the bottom. I was hoping to avoid this though.

If you have some video quality issues (flickering, stuttering...), don't forget that your taskbar is on top of your SageTV window then... (I'm not saying that it will have necessarily an effect on the video quality)

[eopian]

For some reason after unlocking the taskbar it wouldn't hide manually. FSE did however take care of the problem for now.