Is it possible to run applications on the Windows Desktop? I mean... that it can only be seen in the system tray, and it should be able to run alongside the desktop. I have no idea how to code it, please help me. I'm kind of new to these things, I am supposed to create something like a "Stardock Fence".
I have seen some examples, but they seem buggy, any strong alternative I could use?
Process.Start() can be used to start a windows application/console app from another win application. There are parameters that allow you to optionally hide the UI as well.
You want your application's windows to be always-on-bottom. In other words, your UI will always appear to be beneath any other open window and just above the Desktop's icons.
To accomplish that, see these related questions.
Once you have a window always on the bottom of the z-order, you'll probably want to remove the non-client window chrome (titlebar/min/max/close buttons) so that your UI can look like a more integrated part of the Desktop. There's plenty of examples around; Googling is left as an exercise for the reader.
You want to run your application in the background? Is it on a windows machine? If so then you want to look into running your application as a windows service. Here's an msdn link:
Introduction to Windows Services
There's examples in the article I think - if not it's a good starting point. You can configure services to start automatically on startup of the machine etc. Your application will then run in the background.
Basically you craete your application as normal and then host it in a windows service rather than say a console app or a winforms app.
Not entirely sure what you mean by background. I expect you mean a Windows Service which is a project type in visual studio, or you might (less likely) mean running a background thread.
Actually, if you want it in the system-tray, you don't want it entirely in the background.
If it was to be fully "in the background", then your best bet is to have it as a service.
System tray icons need a window, but you can just make it non-visible and non-taskbar and that's fine.
A common combo is a service that does the actual heavy-lifting, and a hidden-window application with a systray icon that reports on the service's status (possibly making that same window visible when further interaction is needed).
