DerBar - a simple system-status bar

DerBar is a simple, slightly-configurable status bar for monitoring key system and network parameters.  It is modeled on older status-monitoring programs such as StatBar, WinBar, and InfoBar, but without the configuration options of those other programs; it is designed for compactness and compatibility, not for turning parts on and off.  The few configuration options that are present, are accessed via the icon in the system tray.  You can move DerBar anywhere you want, by grabbing it and dragging it around, and it will remember where you leave it next time it runs.  

DerBar is compatible with all other programs and will not conflict with DirectX games, as each of the afore-mentioned tools would sometimes do.  It works fine with WinXP and Vista, and works on Linux under Wine, but I have no idea whether it would work under Win98 or not.

DerBar is freeware, source code is available.

Download Derbar utility here

Download DerBar source code here

Revision history
1.00: Original release
1.01: Added color options for field colors
1.02: Added option to select which network interface should be used for reading network throughput.
1.03: Add listview to show info for all interfaces
1.04: Replace interface-selection combo box in Options, with management via the listview dialog.
1.05: Add status displays for locking keyboard keys
1.06: > Add option to move main dialog back to a visible position (to deal with desktop size changes)
      > Add option to make main window stay on top
Background on this program
I've always been a fan of small, low-profile system-status bars.  The first one I used was StatBar, a configurable tool that displayed CPU Utilization, memory, and various other common system parameters in an attractive, slim bar.  It mostly got along with other programs, though it would bleed through into certain DirectX displays.  Unfortunately, support for the program vanished in 2005.  When I finally got a computer with more than 2GB of RAM, I discovered that 2GB was all that StatBar could display.  So a replacement was needed!  I looked at WinBar, which also looked nice, but it had exactly the same limitations as StatBar (no support, 2GB memory limit).  There were other programs that did similar jobs (SysMetrix and RainMeter come to mind), but they were much larger programs both in file sizes and screen sizes, and I wasn't really happy with them.

Then I discovered Night Iguana's InfoBar.  It is freeware, configurable, and looks really nice, and supports >2GB RAM.  I thought I'd found my perfect solution.  Unfortunately, it has a variety of quirks to it (mostly related to DirectX interactions).  These quirks can be largely avoided by minimizing the program, but I never remember to do that before firing up a game.  Support does exist for InfoBar, but finally I decided it was just easier to write my own.

My support guarantee
And so, DerBar was born.  I don't promise any better support than any of the others, but the source code is available, and you can do what you wish with it.  My only request is that, if you distribute a modified program, please change the name to something else to avoid confusion.

DerBar is written in C, using standard Win32 library calls, to improve compatibility.  It is built using the open source MinGW (Minimal Gnu for Windows) tools, and requires a couple of the common utilities from Cygwin as well (Gnu make, rm, etc).