Windows 7 progress bar in taskbar in C#?

If you've noticed in the Windows 7 beta, if you copy files or other system actions, the windows explorer icon in the taskbar will fill up with a green progress bar equivalent to the progress bar on the form. Is there a way that, in my C# forms, I can force my taskbar progress bar to match the progress of whatever task I'm doing? Converting, transferring, generating, there are so many uses for that progress bar.

I just wanted to add some taskbar progress animation to my WinForms application, without having to download code packs or switch to WPF to use TaskbarItemInfo.

The solution was a class that uses the ITaskbarList3 interface:

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

public static class TaskbarProgress
{
    public enum TaskbarStates
    {
        NoProgress    = 0,
        Indeterminate = 0x1,
        Normal        = 0x2,
        Error         = 0x4,
        Paused        = 0x8
    }

    [ComImport()]
    [Guid("ea1afb91-9e28-4b86-90e9-9e9f8a5eefaf")]
    [InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]
    private interface ITaskbarList3
    {
        // ITaskbarList
        [PreserveSig]
        void HrInit();
        [PreserveSig]
        void AddTab(IntPtr hwnd);
        [PreserveSig]
        void DeleteTab(IntPtr hwnd);
        [PreserveSig]
        void ActivateTab(IntPtr hwnd);
        [PreserveSig]
        void SetActiveAlt(IntPtr hwnd);

        // ITaskbarList2
        [PreserveSig]
        void MarkFullscreenWindow(IntPtr hwnd, [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] bool fFullscreen);

        // ITaskbarList3
        [PreserveSig]
        void SetProgressValue(IntPtr hwnd, UInt64 ullCompleted, UInt64 ullTotal);
        [PreserveSig]
        void SetProgressState(IntPtr hwnd, TaskbarStates state);
    }

    [ComImport()]    
    [Guid("56fdf344-fd6d-11d0-958a-006097c9a090")]
    [ClassInterface(ClassInterfaceType.None)]
    private class TaskbarInstance
    {
    }

    private static ITaskbarList3 taskbarInstance = (ITaskbarList3)new TaskbarInstance();
    private static bool taskbarSupported = Environment.OSVersion.Version >= new Version(6, 1);

    public static void SetState(IntPtr windowHandle, TaskbarStates taskbarState)
    {
        if (taskbarSupported) taskbarInstance.SetProgressState(windowHandle, taskbarState);
    }

    public static void SetValue(IntPtr windowHandle, double progressValue, double progressMax)
    {
        if (taskbarSupported) taskbarInstance.SetProgressValue(windowHandle, (ulong)progressValue, (ulong)progressMax);
    }
}

Example of how easy it is to use:

TaskbarProgress.SetState(this.Handle, TaskbarProgress.TaskbarStates.Indeterminate);

or

TaskbarProgress.SetValue(this.Handle, 50, 100);
TaskbarProgress.SetState(this.Handle, TaskbarProgress.TaskbarStates.Error);

For people who want to skip reading the documentation and just get something that works...

• Download the Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .Net Framework.
• Run the installer which creates a zip file
• Extract the following dlls from the binaries folder of the zip file:
• Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.dll
• Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Shell.dll
• Add a reference to them in your project
• Put the following code into your app and modify as necessary:

--

  int max = 100;
  var prog = Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Taskbar.TaskbarManager.Instance;
  prog.SetProgressState(Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Taskbar.TaskbarProgressBarState.Normal);
  for(int i=0;i<max;i++) {
     prog.SetProgressValue(i, max);
     Thread.Sleep(100);     
  }
  prog.SetProgressState(Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Taskbar.TaskbarProgressBarState.NoProgress);

Look into the Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .Net Framework.

Yes, Microsoft covered the new taskbar functions in the following document (sources included): Windows 7 taskbar: Developer Resources

Yes, you need to use this API.

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WindowsAPICodePack

I found a beautiful article (Link) that provides a simple solution to the taskbar progress bar problem. In summary, it instructs you to download the Windows API pack from the MSDN website, adding a reference to the Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Shell.dll that it contains, and finally add three lines of code to your application:

Imports Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack
Imports Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Taskbar
// ...
TaskbarManager.Instance.SetProgressValue(X, 100)

where X is the progress you want to display.