Fix for unreadable Battery Gauge on Vista [PIC]

[yak]

Hi,

some of Vista users have probably noticed that the Power Manager's battery gauge gets unreadable when the task bar is transparent (i.e. there are no maximized windows) and a light colored wallpaper is used.

Couple of days ago I started looking for a solution. All I found were reports of this issue posted as far as back in 2007.

Some more googling showed that this isn't entirely Power Manager's fault as there are other applications having the same problem on Vista, so it is more like another Vista's incompatibility.

The solution I came up with is based on the fact that the gauge looks OK when a dark (ideally black) wallpaper is used. I've written a tiny utility (9KB .exe) that displays a small black borderless window right underneath the gauge (and the task bar) providing a black background for the gauge which in turns makes it readable again.

The utility tries to follow the gauge so if icons are added/removed to the system tray, the taskbar is resized or moved to another side of the screen, the black background window will follow. Right now this is done using a timer so it may not follow immediately (with up to a 1 second delay). If the gauge continues to move for the next 5 seconds, the response is almost immediate. Since the gauge stays in the same position most of the time, this should not be a problem.

Download
http://files.arkadiusz.wahlig.googlepag ... ugeFix.exe

Installation
Simply start the .exe to get it running. Create a shortcut and put it into the Autostart folder to make the utility start with every system boot. It is not a problem if the fix is started before the gauge, in such case it will wait in the background and show up as soon as the gauge pops up on the screen.

Before and after


Let me know if you have any problems with it.

[arlab]

Genius.

[yak]

Just saw that there's an update to the Power Manager available since a week. One of the changes is:

(Fix) Fixed an issue where the Power Manager Gauge was transparent when Windows Aero was effective.

All my work for nothing. First they don't fix it for 2 years and then when someone finally comes up with a viable solution, they fix it.

Oh well.

[Marin85]

yak, that´s great little utility! BTW, not everyone uses the latest version of Lenovo Power Manager The latest doesn´t necessarily mean the best...

Thanks,

Marin

[Temetka]

I've been having this problem for a long time.

I'll try your util if the updated power manager doesn't work.

Thanks for writing it though, it's a great fix.

[Marin85]

yak, I tried to install your utility under Win 7 32bit, but it gave me an error message:

Code: Select all

The program can´t start because CC3290.DLL is missing from your computer. 
Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.

I googled for this .dll (doesn´t seem to be present in any .dll repos either) but couldn´t find anything...

Thanks,

Marin