I have two applications running on Windows 7. The first one is a C++ bootstrapper that launches the second application. I want to change the second application's icon in the Windows taskbar (the bar at the bottom of the screen) programmatically from the first application during runtime.
Is this possible?
Also, is there a way to create the second process so that it shares a common taskbar icon with the first one?
I’m working on a standalone redistributable for games, where the second application is the game player. I would like to load a game-specific icon to avoid a confusing user experience.
What you are asking for is generally not possible. Only the process that owns a Taskbar button can manipulate it. A process cannot manipulate another process's Taskbar buttons. Your bootstrapper will likely need to inject code, such as with CreateRemoteThread(), that runs inside of the second process