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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Hide running windows with WatchCat

WatchCatWatchCat is a free Windows utility that lets you hide running programs from view. It basically minimizes selected programs and removes their entries from the Windows taskbar and Alt+Tab menu. It won't close them; it won't save you any RAM, but it will clear up some screen real estate while you let a program run in the background.

At first this might not seem that useful. But ask yourself, do you really need your music player to show up in the taskbar if all it's doing is playing your MP3 collection? Wouldn't you rather have it run in the background sometimes when you have a bunch of other program windows open and littering your taskbar?

WatchCat has a few other built in goodies like system tray icons that give you quick access to shared network folders all the files saved on your desktop. There's also a timer feature which theoretically lets you set windows to automatically hide or close after a certain period of time. But when we clicked on the timer operations option, nothing happened.

[via gHacks]

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Hide windows from view with Window Hidie

Window Hidie
We're not going to delve into exactly why you've got windows open on your computer that you don't want your boss, children, or spouse looking at. But Window Hidie can help you keep your running programs out of view.

This tiny (52KB) utility displays a list of running applications. Select any button and then click the hide button and the application will disappear from view. You won't be able to find it in the Windows taskbar or Alt+Tab menu either. Click the show button and it will pop back up.

There are a handful off keyboard shortcuts. Win+A will hide or show Window Hidie; Win+ Z will hide the active window, while Win+S will show all hidden windows. You can also select programs to hide during system startup.

The one problem with Window Hidie is that it includes system processes in its list of open windows, making it a bit hard to find the window you're looking for. For example, Window Hidie includes 8 listings for the chat program Pidgin.

[via gHacks]

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