keep windows on top

There are about a million ways to enhance the functionality of Windows and the beauty is that there are many cool tools out there making it possible. Here is a tool that enhances the right-click menu of title bars and taskbar icons.

PowerMenu [Broken URL Removed] has been around for over a decade. It's a very simple, yet incredibly useful tool that is compatible up to Windows Vista. PowerMenu adds extra menu options to all top level system menus, while the standard options remain intact. Some of the features include: minimize to tray, keep windows on top, make windows transparent, and more.

Keep Windows Always on Top

This option is very useful when you want to keep a window on top, no matter what you're doing on the side. If you multitask a lot, this one is a must.

Make Windows Transparent

Making a window transparent obviously lets you see what sits below it. I can imagine this could be useful when you're working with limited screen space and need to check for references below the window in which you're typing. Personally, I don't have a use for this feature.

Priority

The higher the priority of a program, the more processing power it will receive. This one is useful when you have a lot of processes running in the background that are not urgent and you don't want to steal power from the applications you are currently using. You simply reduce the priority of the programs running in the background and increase the priority of the tools you're actively using.

Sure, Windows 2000 and up already provide this option. You open the task manager, find the process that needs a priority adaption, which can actually be difficult to start with, right-click it and select its new priority. With PowerMenu the same thing can be done much quicker and independent of the task manager, simply by right-clicking the taskbar icon or the title bar.

Minimize to Tray

The taskbar provides only limited space and PowerMenu lets you minimize programs to the tray. I love this feature as it allows me to remove distracting clutter from the taskbar, for example programs quietly running in the background like Winamp or Napster.

Command Line Options

With the help of command line options PowerMenu can perform additional tasks, for example hide its system tray icon. Or it can run a specific option on all windows with a certain word in the title bar, for example make windows containing the word "Mozilla" "always on top". All options can be found within the help file of Power Menu which is accessible through the icon in the sytem tray.

If you like this tool, you may also enjoy WinRoll or one of these 6 Tools for Elegant Taskbar Tweaking. Do you know of other similar tools? What are you using?