powershell apply new settings to taskbar

Question

I am playing around with powershell and am changing some taskbar settings by changing the registry key. For example i have written an autohide enable disable function.

$autoHideSettingsPath = "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StuckRects2";
$autoHideValueName = "Settings";

Function toggleAutohideRegistrySettings($enable)
{

    $key = Get-ItemProperty -Path $autoHideSettingsPath -Name $autoHideValueName;   

    Write-Host "key is: " + $key
    if($enable)
    {
        $key.$autoHIdeValueName[8] = $key.$autoHideValueName[8] -bor 1;

    }else{
        $key.$autoHIdeValueName[8] = $key.$autoHideValueName[8] -band 0;    
    }

    Set-ItemProperty -Path $autoHideSettingsPath -Name $autoHideValueName -Value $key.$autoHideValueName;
}

The change in registry works perfectly. But to take effect i need to restart the explorer.exe. Which i can obviously also do in PS... but i noticed that when you apply the autohide settings in the menue (the mouse way), the explorer.exe is not being restarted.

So my question is: how do i apply the changes to the taskbar in the PS, without restarting the explorer.exe?

Answer 1

I've used the script above to send message to applications that there are new settings from the registry. Not all application can receive this message but I think explore does.

Give it a try, calling it after registry settings are applied:

$sign = @"
using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

public static class RegUpdate
{
    private const int HWND_BROADCAST = 0xffff;
    private const int WM_WININICHANGE = 0x001a, WM_SETTINGCHANGE = WM_WININICHANGE, INI_INTL = 1;
      [DllImport("user32.dll")] 
    private static extern int SendMessage(int hWnd, uint wMsg, uint wParam, uint lParam); 

    public static string SendM()
    {
        try
                {                   
                   SendMessage(HWND_BROADCAST, WM_SETTINGCHANGE, 0, INI_INTL);
                   return "0";
                }

                catch (Exception ex)
                {
                    return (ex.Message);              
                }
    }
}
"@
$type = Add-Type -TypeDefinition $sign -Language CSharp -PassThru
$type::SendM()