DesktopTaskView

A tiny Windows 11 tray helper that brings macOS-style "click empty desktop" behavior to Windows:

• Single-click an empty area of the desktop → minimize all visible windows (and restore them on the next single-click).
• Double-click an empty area of the desktop → open Windows Task View.

It runs entirely from the system tray, ships as a single ~30 KB .exe, and needs no installer, no admin rights, and no external dependencies beyond what already ships with Windows 10/11.

Built with Codex/GPT as a vibe coding project: the human supplies the need, the taste, and the pass/fail judgment; the AI supplies the C# and the Win32 plumbing. Be skeptical, test it, and please open an issue if something behaves badly on your machine.

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Features (v0.3.1)

Single-click empty desktop	Minimize all visible top-level windows; restore them on the next single-click.
Double-click empty desktop	Open Windows Task View (Win + Tab).
Accurate maximize restore	Maximized windows come back maximized (uses WINDOWPLACEMENT; previously they returned to normal size).
Desktop icon detection	Clicking a desktop icon no longer triggers minimize — cross-process LVM_HITTEST distinguishes icons from empty space.
Strict desktop detection	Progman / WorkerW ancestry + SHELLDLL_DefView ownership check, so File Explorer file lists are not mistaken for the desktop.
Settings UI	Toggles, click timing, and exclusions in a proper window.
Persistent config	%APPDATA%\DesktopTaskView\settings.ini.
Excluded apps	Comma-separated list of process names that won't be minimized.
Custom tray icon	Drawn at runtime, no external .ico file.
Auto-start toggle	Writes to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
Single instance	Named mutex prevents accidental duplicates.
DPI-aware	SetProcessDPIAware() at startup.

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Install

1. Download DesktopTaskView.exe from the latest release.
2. Put it anywhere you like — e.g. C:\Tools\DesktopTaskView\. The settings file is stored in %APPDATA%\DesktopTaskView\ and is independent of the exe location.
3. Double-click the exe. A monitor-with-down-arrow icon appears in the system tray.
4. (Optional) Right-click the tray icon → Start with Windows.

There is no installer. There is also no uninstaller — delete the exe and the %APPDATA%\DesktopTaskView folder.

SmartScreen note

The exe is unsigned. The first time you run it, Windows SmartScreen may show a "Windows protected your PC" dialog. Click More info → Run anyway if you trust the build, or build it yourself from source (instructions below).

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Use

Mouse

Gesture	Action
Left single-click on empty desktop area	Minimize all visible windows. Click again to restore.
Left double-click on empty desktop area	Open Task View.
Left single-click on tray icon	Open Settings.
Right-click on tray icon	Show the menu (Enabled, Open Task View, Show / Restore Desktop, Settings..., Start with Windows, About, Exit).

The single-click behavior intentionally waits a few ms after the click — that's the single-click delay in Settings — so a fast double-click is recognized as a double-click and not as two independent single-clicks.

Excluded processes

In Settings → Excluded processes, enter process names (one per line, or comma-separated, no .exe suffix). Those windows will be skipped during the "minimize all" step. Examples:

notepad
code
photoshop

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Build from source

You need Windows 10 or 11. No Visual Studio, no .NET SDK, no MSBuild, no NuGet — DesktopTaskView builds with the csc.exe shipped inside Windows.

git clone https://github.com/<your-account>/DesktopTaskView.git
cd DesktopTaskView
build-exe.bat

This produces DesktopTaskView.exe next to the source. The build script just calls:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\csc.exe
  /target:winexe /platform:anycpu /optimize+ /langversion:5
  /reference:System.dll /reference:System.Core.dll
  /reference:System.Drawing.dll /reference:System.Windows.Forms.dll
  /out:DesktopTaskView.exe DesktopTaskView.cs

If csc.exe is missing, you don't have the .NET Framework 4.x runtime enabled. On Windows 10/11 it normally is. Worst case, enable it via Turn Windows features on or off → .NET Framework 3.5 / 4.x.

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How it works (short version)

The runtime architecture is intentionally small. Everything lives in DesktopTaskView.cs:

• Program.Main — single-instance check, DPI awareness, runs the tray context.
• TrayContext — ApplicationContext that owns the tray icon, the settings, and the click watcher.
• AppSettings — INI-style load/save under %APPDATA%. No JSON dependency.
• DesktopClickWatcher — WH_MOUSE_LL low-level mouse hook. On WM_LBUTTONDOWN it asks DesktopHitTest whether the click is on the empty desktop, and disambiguates single vs. double click using a WinForms timer.
• DesktopHitTest — strict check: WindowFromPoint must hit either Progman / WorkerW directly, or a SHELLDLL_DefView / SysListView32 whose ancestor chain ends at a Progman / WorkerW that itself owns a SHELLDLL_DefView. This is what prevents the v0.1.0 false-positive inside File Explorer.
• WindowMinimizer — enumerates top-level windows, filters shell/tray/cloaked/excluded/empty-title/tool windows, minimizes the rest, and remembers what it minimized so a second click can restore exactly that set (and not whatever the user minimized manually).
• SettingsForm — WinForms dialog bound to a working copy of the settings; on Save it pushes back into TrayContext which re-applies everything live.

All native interop lives in Native at the bottom of the file.

Design decisions worth knowing

These were learned the hard way during v0.1.x and should not be regressed:

• Don't use Shell.Application.ToggleDesktop for the single-click path. It was unreliable when triggered from a mouse event.
• Don't loosen the desktop hit test. SHELLDLL_DefView and SysListView32 show up both on the desktop and inside File Explorer. The owning-SHELLDLL_DefView check on the ancestor is what distinguishes them.
• Call SetProcessDPIAware() early. Without it, WindowFromPoint returns wrong handles on scaled displays.
• AutoHotkey / Ahk2Exe were tried and abandoned. Old experiments live under useless/ for reference; ignore them.

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Files

build-exe.bat              build script
DesktopTaskView.cs         single-file source
DesktopTaskView.exe        built binary (also attached to GitHub releases)
enable-exe-startup.bat     auto-start helper (alternative to the tray toggle)
enable-exe-startup.ps1
disable-exe-startup.bat
disable-exe-startup.ps1
LICENSE                    MIT
README.md                  this file
RELEASE_NOTES.md           changelog
PROJECT_MEMORY.md          context notes for future AI-assisted sessions
.gitignore

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Roadmap / ideas

Tracked rough ideas for future versions:

• Better README screenshots / animated GIF.
• Optional MSI installer.
• GitHub Actions build & release automation.
• Per-monitor exclude rules.
• Pluggable click actions (e.g. cycle workspaces).

PRs welcome, especially with a short description of the use case.

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.