Free Tools to Make Your Window Always Stay On Top, and More
Sometimes is useful to have this – make a window/application always stay on top. For example, you want to refer to a particular web page while typing in Microsoft Office or maybe you are watching a movie and you want your media player to stay visible all the time no matter what.
By default, Windows has no build in feature that let you make a window to stay on top. But, there are several ways (tools) to accomplish this – free and paid. I’ll go for the free way…
DeskPins
DeskPins can be used to make any application topmost, that is, to keep it above all other windows. Just grab a pin from the DeskPins icon in the system notification area (a.k.a. taskbar tray) and click on any window. This functionality is identical to the “Always on Top” setting found in some programs. With DeskPins you can add this feature to any program!
This is a very small and simple application. DeskPins add a new ‘pin’ on any window that you want it to stay on top.
There are several useful options and features that come along with DeskPins. You can change the color of the pin, set hot keys and best of all the Autopin feature. With Autopin, you can automatically pin the application whenever it launches, say you want to have Windows Media Player always stay on top whenever it starts – Autopin will do it for you!
You can grab DeskPins here for a mere 96 KB and it only needs 4 MB of RAM and best off all it works with any version of Windows, including Windows 7.
PowerMenu
OK. This is my favorite! IMHO, the is better than DeskPins.
PowerMenu is yet another small and simple application by Thong Nguyen. It adds some extra menu items to the standard window control menu in addition to the standard ‘Close’, ‘Maximize’, etc options.
The extra options include:
- Priority – Changes the priority of the window’s parent process
- Transparency – Changes the transparency level of the window (Windows 2K/XP/Vista/7 only)
- Always On Top – Makes the window sit on top of other windows even if it doesn’t have focus.
- Minimize To Tray – Remove the window from the task list and places the window’s on the system tray.
I really like the Priority and Minimize To Tray features in addition to the Always On Top feature.
You can download PowerMenu at a tiny size of 110 KB here.
*Note: There are some feedbacks that PowerMenu didn’t work will 64bit version of Windows.
Feel free to add your comments, suggestions and feedbacks at the comment section below!
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