Looking for a windows taskbar notification program.

April 3, 2014 7:45 AM

I am looking for a simplified calendar app, I suppose. I want to tell this program to pop up a notification at 10:30pm every day. I want this notification to stick around, on top of all other windows, until I actually dismiss it.

Running a windows 7 64 bit system..

I tried to do this with thunderbird, but because I run it minimized to my taskbar, the notifications don't pop up on other windows and I miss them.

I have tried various e-mail notifications and text message notifications for both my phone and gmail, but they are often unobtrusive. I need something obtrusive and persistent.

Free is awesome, but I am willing to spend a little bit of money if the program is powerful/easily customizable.

posted by royalsong to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

If you want the same thing to be displayed at 10:30am then you can do this with some simple VBScript.

Save the following into a file called "Reminder.vbs":

MsgBox "Don't forget to do something!", 48+4096+65536, "Reminder"

Double click on it and a pop-up will appear, in front of all windows and it won't disappear until you click on OK. If you're interested in what all the numbers mean, take a look at this page.

Once you're happy, just set up a scheduled task within Windows that runs this every day at 10:30am.
posted by mr_silver at 7:56 AM on April 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You can do this with my favorite Windows sticky note program, stickies

Stickies are customizable as to size/color/font etc., and can be set to "always on top". You can set them to "sleep" until a certain time, and you can set that time to be recurring daily (or weekly or every 2 days or whatever). You can also have it play a sound when it wakes.
posted by brainmouse at 10:48 AM on April 3, 2014

I use Google Calendar to keep track of my personal appointments. Using Chrome as my browser, when signed in, it will pop up reminder notifications in the lower right corner of the screen above the clock. They are not inside the Chrome window, they are completely separate and always on top. They do not disappear until I dismiss them.

I think because Chrome has the ability to run background processes, this will still work even if you don't have Google Calendar open on one of your tabs, or even without a browser window open at all (as long as the Chrome icon is still in the statusbar area by the clock). I can't swear to this, though, because I always have Chrome open and the calendar is one of my pinned tabs that I never close.
posted by trivia genius at 11:46 AM on April 3, 2014

Is this an issue just since getting Windows 7? Outlook notices no longer pop up on top of the other windows, only behind them and in the task bar. I researched this last year and found my solution in DeskPins. It takes a few minutes to set up, but you can define exactly which type of pop-up (e.g. all calendar reminders, or all Instant Messenger conversations) or which exact pop-up (e.g. only the 10:30 recurring calendar appt with name = "Notice This") will show on top of your desktop.

To clarify - this software won't create a notice, it will only act upon some other notice to make sure it comes to the top of your desktop. If you don't have an app to send you the notice at 10:30, then DeskPins won't work for you.
posted by CathyG at 2:21 PM on April 3, 2014