Create another taskbar in Windows 7

I'm an experienced web developer and want to write a quick Windows utility just to simplify my desktop a bit, but I'm not quite sure where to start. I don't have much Windows programming experience but I have no problem jumping in and learning, I just need a starting point.

Basically I want to create a second taskbar in Windows 7. The standard taskbar, at the bottom, is fine but I'd like to add a second one at the top of my screen that takes full advantage of the new Windows 7 features.

I'm not looking for a complete how-to on this, but can someone point me in the right direction to look as far as what I'd need to do just to get another taskbar to display on my monitor?

I wasn't aware that you could create a 2nd taskbar on Windows 7.

Can you describe how to do this through the UI?

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Originally Posted by Scott927

I'd like to add a second one at the top of my screen that takes full advantage of the new Windows 7 features.

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Could you elaborate on 'new Windows 7 features' and what you'd like the taskbar to contain?

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can someone point me in the right direction to look as far as what I'd need to do just to get another taskbar to display on my monitor

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It's easy to make a bar appear on the screen. You can get a feel of it by creating a form and setting these properties:

ControlBox: False
FormBorderStyle: None
ShowIcon: False
ShowInTaskbar: False
TopMost: True

You should see a grey bar on your screen. There's a property for transparency as well.

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I wasn't aware that you could create a 2nd taskbar on Windows 7.

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I don't think the OP implied that. I just Googled it but couldn't find anything.

I'm not really looking just to make a grey bar, my goal is to actually duplicate the Windows 7 taskbar (minus the start button, of course). I want to write a program that will put another taskbar (with transparency, jumplists, etc) at the top of my screen. I'll then attach a link to each item on the taskbar that will allow me to move an icon up to the other taskbar.

This would be similar to a multi-monitor display utility. The second monitor has another taskbar (UltraMon would be a good example) and you can switch applications between the taskbars, but I just want to create it on the same monitor.

I realize this is probably not a trivial application and that there isn't going to be a "just do this" answer. I'm just looking for direction on where to start researching how to do this.

Thanks,

Scott