Why then, after all the work on these extra visuals, did Microsoft feel the need to take the network activity icon in the system tray, and make it look so bland and lifeless? Although they said it was to make things look less ‘noisy’ in the tray, I like the old one, because you can see if something like a download has finished in the background, or there’s activity on your network when you think there shouldn’t be. It’s also useful at watching for activity on laptops. To me, this is one of the minor annoyances of Windows 7 where it wasn’t already broken in XP and Vista as well to some extent, but Microsoft decided to try and fix it anyway.
Windows XP’s icon makes it very clear when there is
network activity so you don’t have to stare at your router to see what’s
going on. Vista’s icon does at least give you the option to right click
on the icon and turn icon activity on or off.
It’s clear in XP Still visible in Vista… What happened!
One
of the first things I did when installing Windows 7 for the first time,
was go on a search to try and find something to bring the activity back
to the icon. Luckily it didn’t take too long and came across a small
utility by iT Samples called Network Activity Indicator. The program is
available in both portable and as a setup installer, but it makes sense
to use the installer if you plan on it replacing the default icon.
Download and install, a few seconds later, you have this:
Activity is back With a Vista style icon
Network
Activity Indicator uses not much more than a Megabyte of memory, and
has a couple of other useful features such as a handy right click menu
for access to your network, which is something else sadly lacking in
Windows 7 when you right click its icon. Quickly checking or editing
network adapter settings is only a click or two away now.
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