TranslucentTB's taskbar states, and the startup entry that needs four registry keys

Normal is the one state where your chosen color is ignored

TranslucentTB replaces the taskbar surface with one of five states, and the color picker applies to four of them. Normal draws the regular Windows taskbar, described as if TranslucentTB was not running, and it is the single state where the chosen color does not apply. Opaque gives a tinted taskbar with no transparency, Clear is the tinted transparent one, Acrylic approximates Microsoft's Fluent Design look, and Blur is a light blur. Set Normal by accident and the app looks like it failed: the process is running, the tray icon is there, and the taskbar looks untouched. That is a settings mistake, not a broken install. The picker itself supports alpha and shows a live preview before you commit, so the value of the color is decided while the app is open, not after a restart.

Four dynamic modes stack, and the README states no precedence between them

Beyond the static state you pick, five dynamic modes can be combined, and each one carries its own taskbar state and its own color: Visible window, Maximized window, Start opened, Search opened and Task View opened are the conditions it watches. Search opened refers to the search menu that replaced Cortana, and Task View opened to what used to be Timeline, so the names track two Windows redesigns rather than a fixed UI. The cost of combining them is configuration volume, since every active mode is another appearance with another pair of values. The bigger gap is overlap: a maximised window is usually also a visible window, and the Start menu can be open at the same time, yet the README says nothing about which mode wins when two conditions are true simultaneously. You find out by looking at the taskbar, not by reading the settings.

The Aero Peek toggle and the taskbar line toggle belong to different Windows versions

One feature pair is split by platform, and the split is not cosmetic. On Windows 10 the app can show or hide the Aero Peek button depending on which dynamic mode is currently active. On Windows 11 the same idea applies to the taskbar line instead. Blur is restricted the same way, documented as available on Windows 10 and on Windows 11 build 22000 only, so on any other Windows 11 build that state is not something the project claims to deliver. The settings surface is described machine-readably by settings.schema.json at the repository root.

Four ways to get the binary, each with a different cost

The Microsoft Store build is free, installs from the listing 9PF4KZ2VN4W9, and takes background auto-updates, which is the whole maintenance story handled for you. If you would rather not use the Store, TranslucentTB.appinstaller sits in the releases tab and installs when you open it. A portable build ships as TranslucentTB.zip in the same tab and has one hard constraint: it only works on Windows 11. A fourth option is the bleeding edge build on the project's Azure Pipelines page, definitionId=4, which the README says may not work or may include features that are partially complete, at your own risk. The versioning is calendar based, with 2026.2 released on 2026-08-31, 2026.1 on 2026-03-07 and 2025.1 on 2025-04-24, so the number tells you when a build was cut, never which Windows build it needs.

Open at boot is grayed out until four machine-wide policy values change

Startup is a context menu entry named Open at boot in the tray icon, and when that entry is grayed out the fix is a registry edit under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, not a per-user setting. The values the project asks for are EnableFullTrustStartupTasks and EnableUwpStartupTasks set to 00000002, with SupportFullTrustStartupTasks and SupportUwpStartupTasks set to 00000001:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"EnableFullTrustStartupTasks"=dword:00000002
"EnableUwpStartupTasks"=dword:00000002
"SupportFullTrustStartupTasks"=dword:00000001
"SupportUwpStartupTasks"=dword:00000001

Two consequences follow. First, the keys sit in the machine hive, so the change applies to every user of the PC and to every other application that relies on UWP or full trust startup tasks, not just this one. Second, the project shows what to set and not what to restore, so a reader who wants the old behaviour back has to work out the previous values unaided. The portable build avoids the registry entirely: a shortcut to its executable in %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup is enough.

Antivirus flags it, and the documented answer is to build the binary yourself

The project states plainly that some antiviruses are over eager and may flag the program as malicious, answers that it is not, and points at two things you can check: the source is open, and the README links to a building-from-source section in the contribution guide, with an invitation for security reviews. On a locked down corporate machine that answer does not change the block, because the flag comes from the binary you are asked to run, not from the argument. What decides your options there is which build you install: the Store listing is the one the project recommends for normal use, the appinstaller is the same program delivered outside the Store, and the Azure Pipelines build is the one the project explicitly marks as use at your own risk because features can be partially complete. On such a machine the honest outcome is that you verify a build from source against the flagged one rather than argue with the scanner.

Nothing in the README covers removing it or undoing the startup change

The installation section is thorough and the exit path is missing. The project tells you how to add itself to startup in two ways, how to install from three sources, and which other tools it works alongside, but it does not say how to remove TranslucentTB, and it does not say which removal applies to which install. A Store install, an appinstaller install and a portable zip do not uninstall the same way, and a shortcut left in the Startup folder stays behind even after the portable build itself is gone. The compatibility claims have the same shape: RoundedTB and ExplorerPatcher are both named as compatible, with no description of the configuration they share or of what a conflict would look like, so a taskbar that fights with another tool gives you no documented place to start debugging. The tree has a Tests directory, and the README says nothing about what those tests cover either.

A C++ tree with a shipped settings schema, not a script you can read

The source is a Visual Studio solution named TranslucentTB.slnx, developed on the release branch in C++, with Common, ExplorerHooks, ExplorerTAP, WindowsUdk, Xaml, AppPackage, ProgramLog and Tests directories at the root and a vcpkg directory for third-party dependencies. store-listing.csv holds the store metadata as a CSV file, and settings.schema.json describes the app's settings in machine readable form, which is what makes the configuration inspectable from outside. The code is GPLv3, with LICENSE.md as the file to read before you redistribute anything you build from this tree, and a modified build that you pass on carries the same licence terms as the original. The last push on the release branch was on 2026-10-13, between the 2026.2 release on 2026-08-31 and whatever ships next.

Editorial conclusion

Install this from the Microsoft Store if you want a taskbar that keeps itself updated, and use the portable zip only if you are on Windows 11. Do not reach for the Azure Pipelines build on a machine you depend on, since the project says those builds can be broken or half finished. Before enabling startup, read the four EnableUwpStartupTasks policy values in the README and decide whether a machine-wide registry change is acceptable on your PC, because the project gives you no way back documented.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. License: GPL-3.0
2. Project website
3. README
4. Releases
5. TranslucentTB/TranslucentTB on GitHub