A lightweight Windows tray utility that adds Always on Top and Hide Window to every window's system menu.

Right-click a window title bar (or its taskbar button, or press Alt+Space) and toggle Always on Top with a checkmark showing the current state, or choose Hide Window to make it fully invisible. Hidden windows have no title bar to right-click, so they can only be restored from the tray icon's Manage Windows dialog.

• AlwaysOnTop.exe runs in the notification area and loads AlwaysOnTopHook.dll.
• The hook DLL installs global WH_SHELL, WH_CALLWNDPROC, and WH_GETMESSAGE hooks.
• When a window's system menu opens, Always on Top and Hide Window items are injected.
• Selecting Always on Top toggles HWND_TOPMOST via SetWindowPos.
• Selecting Hide Window calls ShowWindow(SW_HIDE) and tags the window so it shows up in the Manage Windows dialog.
• The tray icon's Manage Windows dialog lists every pinned and/or hidden window (with its state) and can unpin/unhide them, individually or all at once.
• The app follows the system light/dark theme setting for its own dialogs.

Requirements: Windows 10+, CMake 3.25+, MSVC (Visual Studio 2022/2026).

cmake -S . -B build -G "Visual Studio 18 2026" -A x64
cmake --build build --config Release

Output:

build/Release/AlwaysOnTop.exe
build/Release/AlwaysOnTopHook.dll

Both files must stay in the same directory.

Pushing a tag matching v*.*.* (e.g. v0.1.0) triggers a GitHub Actions workflow that builds the Release binaries, packages them into an Inno Setup installer, and publishes both the installer and a portable zip to a GitHub Release.

1. Run AlwaysOnTop.exe.
2. Right-click any window title bar.
3. Choose Always on Top to pin it, or Hide Window to hide it.
4. Right-click the tray icon and choose Manage Windows... to see pinned/hidden windows and restore them.
5. Right-click the tray icon and choose Quit to stop the utility.

• Elevated windows (Run as administrator) require AlwaysOnTop to run elevated as well.
• Some modern apps (UWP, custom chrome) may not expose a standard system menu.
• Global hooks load a DLL into other processes; some security software may flag this behavior.
• Pinned/hidden state isn't persisted anywhere; it lives only as long as the target window itself does. If you quit AlwaysOnTop.exe while a window is hidden, relaunch the app and use Manage Windows to restore it.

MIT