I need help...

[edyzmedieval]

...and a quite odd request too.

At school, we have our study time in our rooms. But sometimes, the teachers don't give me any homework at all but still the "on duty" teachers want you to study and not sit around and playing games. I'm a big reader, but sometimes it's too much and I just want to play some Flight Simulator or kill some more enemies in M2TW. I barely escaped many times from notebook confiscation (I never got it confiscated...w00t!), but I don't want them even to know that I'm playing games or something. a Tonight, my roommate's laptop got confiscated and lucky me, I was on wikipedia and not playing FSX.

Is there a software that disguises the background? Down at the toolbar, the background processes are displayed, and I want those hidden, and if possible, the ones I want.

Help?

[Husar]

I can't help with you problem I'm afraid but I want to gicve you moral support by saying that's a stupid policy.

At least for me if I don't want to learn I won't, if I can't play with games I play with my fingers or look for patterns on the ground or whatever.
For some reason noone believes this but that just proves they have no idea.

Hope you can solve that problem.

[Bijo]

There should be some software around that would allow you to press a button or some personally set shortcut (maybe with the mouse) which overrides the current system activity and other buttons to quickly disguise the whole screen. Something like a "panic button" or so. Ya know: like what the American president has in his room if he hears Russian planes are approaching America.... he quikcly presses the panic button, only he discovers he mispressed and launched large automatic nuclear strikes against the world :P

[Caius]

There is a program that allows you to have 4 desks in one, so you could go to desk2 when you are playing in desk1. I don't remember the name of the program.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

If you are on your own computer, during your own time (in other words with no class work to be doing), and not leeching school bandwidth, I'm not sure if they're legally allowed to confiscate your property. I'm fairly sure they aren't here, and if a student goes to the principal or dean on the matter, I'm sure they'll be forced to relent, or at least give your laptop back and just not allow you to use it in class.

[Papewaio]

Simple solution:

Take a screen shot of your desktop as you would like it.
Use it as your background.
Unlock the taskbar and drag it down.

Note that any clicking on the background task bar will reveal the ruse.

[Papewaio]

Alternatively you can choose to always hide the icon.

[Csargo]

I'd do the thing Pape said and just have another program open and just Alt-Tab when a teacher comes near.

[R'as al Ghul]

Is there a software that disguises the background? Down at the toolbar, the background processes are displayed, and I want those hidden, and if possible, the ones I want.

Help?

If you use DM2 (http://dm2.sourceforge.net/) you can minimize any window to the area next to the clock on your taskbar. If you then toggle that window to "always hidden" in the options of the taskbar, the window will be hidden unless you press the arrow button to reveal hidden processes.
I hope this makes sense.
DM2 also gives you 2-4 desktop areas between which you can switch around, like in linux. You could restrict your flight simulator window to desktop 2 and have wikipedia open on desktop 1. If someone approaches you you just switch to your work desktop.

R'as

[edyzmedieval]

If you use DM2 (http://dm2.sourceforge.net/) you can minimize any window to the area next to the clock on your taskbar. If you then toggle that window to "always hidden" in the options of the taskbar, the window will be hidden unless you press the arrow button to reveal hidden processes.
I hope this makes sense.
DM2 also gives you 2-4 desktop areas between which you can switch around, like in linux. You could restrict your flight simulator window to desktop 2 and have wikipedia open on desktop 1. If someone approaches you you just switch to your work desktop.

R'as

R'as you're a life saver.
My only gripe with the program is that it eats unusually high resources, even if it shows that it's just very small. 4GB and I have to wait for IE to load.

How do I switch from desktop 1 to the other one? How do I do it? I got the full version with some plugins, including Virtual Desktop.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I found a program that's really small and will hide everything with the touch of a button. I cannot quite remember the name, I'll look at it tomorrow.

[R'as al Ghul]

R'as you're a life saver.
My only gripe with the program is that it eats unusually high resources, even if it shows that it's just very small. 4GB and I have to wait for IE to load.

How do I switch from desktop 1 to the other one? How do I do it? I got the full version with some plugins, including Virtual Desktop.

You're welcome.
I've the virtual desktop disabled and it almost needs no resources at all. If you've a flightsim running on desktop 1 and IE on desktop 2 then it's normal that your system is slowed down. The flightsim is eating up resources. I'd try to disable the virtual desktop for the time being and see if that's the reason for the low performance.

Switching is done by double-click on the virtual desktop icon, iirc, and right click gives some more options.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Virtual Active Desktop is the one I use. Try that one, it's quick and you can change at the touch of a button between two desktops.