PowerShell : Where is my taskbar ?

If you often work with PowerShell, and especially PowerShell GUI, then sometimes you will need to know :

• How many computer monitors are connected ?
• Which is the primary ?
• What are the screen resolution (for every monitor attached) ?

Well, you can get all information with :

• System.Windows.Forms.Screen class

It provides theses information. So you just have to use this class and after you can use the AllScreens properties.

Below are some examples :

First, load modules

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
[System.Windows.Forms.Screen]::AllScreens

On my computer, I got this result :

BitsPerPixel : 32
Bounds       : {X=0,Y=0,Width=1280,Height=1024}
DeviceName   : \\.\DISPLAY1
Primary      : True
WorkingArea  : {X=0,Y=0,Width=1280,Height=984}

Ok, cool you have informations about your computer monitor.

Now you can imagine to do something like this :

$taskbar = [System.Windows.Forms.Screen]::AllScreens

$taskbar | ForEach-Object {

$workingWidth = $taskbar.WorkingArea.Width
$workingHeight = $taskbar.WorkingArea.Height
$boundsWidth = $taskbar.Bounds.Width
$boundsHeight = $taskbar.Bounds.Height
$monitor = $taskbar.DeviceName

    if ($workingWidth -eq $boundsWidth) {
        write-host "Taskbar : Horizontal"
        write-host "Monitor : $monitor"
    } elseif ($workingHeight -eq $boundsHeight) {
        write-host "Taskbar : Vertical"
        write-host "Monitor : $monitor"
    } else {
        write-host "Taskbar : Hidden ?"
    }
}

It will return the position of your taskbar

Taskbar : Horizontal
Monitor : \\.\DISPLAY1

Use this property to find if taskbar is at the bottom of screen

WorkingArea       : {X=0,Y=0

or on top of the screen

WorkingArea       : {X=0,Y=40

To finish, you can set your GUI position with the location property and this class.