O&O DeskInfo Product manual

O&O DeskInfo 
Product manual

Overview

O&O DeskInfo is a portable app for Windows that displays system information on the desktop after your computer is started. When doing so, the information is displayed in front of the monitor’s background but behind the desktop icons. This allows the information to be visible but not distracting while you’re working.

This information is intended to provide insight into the system and its workload, and to indicate possible bottlenecks. Such information could also be helpful for an IT Help Desk because it can be passed on without searching the system or entering a command. It only needs to be copied to the clipboard and then attached to an email or web form.

System requirements

  • Windows 11, 10, Windows Server 2022 or Windows Server 2016
  • No installation necessary, portable app
  • Internet connection only needed for accessing the EULA, online help, and checking for updates
  • Automatically starts with Windows, if wanted

Features

System information displayed

  • Machine: name, primay DNS suffix
  • Operating system: version, Build, code name
  • User: name, domain
  • CPU: model, system type, current utilization
  • RAM: size, current availability
  • GPU: modell, dedicated memory size
  • Network adapter: adapter, IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, subnet masks, DNS, DHCP, Gateway, transfer rates transmission/reception
  • Drives: local drives, network drives
  • Info notification

Info section

Current system information can also be found by hovering the mouse over the app’s icon displayed in the Info section.

O&O DeskInfo Icon

Right-clicking opens the context menu from which many settings can be immediately adjusted. This usually requires reinitialization of the app which occurs automatically and can last a few moments.

Clipboard

All current system information on display can be copied to clipboard from the context menu and transferred directly from there to other programs.

After copying, a dialog appears featuring an option to start the Windows Editor and paste the copied material there. By confirming the prompt, the Editor (Notepad) will be started and data pasted from the clipboard.

Info notification

It is possible to enter a message into the configuration file that can then be displayed under system information. This can be, for example, a note for the user or contact information for the IT Help-Desk.

Settings

Settings can be made over the context menu as well as over the configuration file. The configuration file does, however, offer more options for settings.

The configuration file can be emptied or deleted to restore settings back to their original status. The default values will then be reapplied at the next start.

Context menu in the Info section of the taskbar

The position can be set on the screen as well as the monitor over the context menu. In addition, three predefined display profiles and a possible custom profile can be selected there. The application can also be ended here.

Configuration file

All settings can be made with the configuration file. Changing and saving this file updates the display after a short interval. The format of the file is XML. The standard file after the first start is shown below. It is found under the path
%LocalAppData%\OO Software\OO DeskInfo\OODeskInfo.cfg

%LocalAppData%\OO Software\OO DeskInfo\OODeskInfo.cfg

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Settings xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="https://www.oo-software.com">
  <ShowWelcome>false</ShowWelcome>
  <TrayMenu>Full</TrayMenu>
  <AppLogEnabled>true</AppLogEnabled>
  <Language />
  <Monitor>0</Monitor>
  <WindowPosition>RightTop</WindowPosition>
  <InfoMessage />
  <TextColor>White</TextColor>
  <TextSize>10</TextSize>
  <Opacity>100</Opacity>
  <UpdateSpeed>5</UpdateSpeed>
  <FillColorNormal>Green</FillColorNormal>
  <FillColorWarning>Yellow</FillColorWarning>
  <FillColorCritical>Red</FillColorCritical>
  <FillColorBackground>LightGray</FillColorBackground>
</Settings>

Parameter for the Configuration File

The following table lists the respective parameters and their possible values.

Parameter Type Possible Value Description
AppLogEnabled Item true, false Activates logging
CustomProfile Profil see explanation below Profile to display the value
FillColorBackground Item Color values Color for the fill bar of the free memory
FillColorCritical Item Color values Color for the filling bar of the drives with capacity > 90%
FillColorNormal Item Color values Color for the filling bar of the drives with capacity < 80%
FillColorWarning Item Color values Color for the filling bar of the drives with capacity >= 80% and < 90%
InfoMessage Item Text Message or tip for the user
Language Item de, en, fr Language for the display
Monitor Integer 0...n Index of the monitor for display; 0 = main monitor
Opacity Integer 0...100 Transparency of display; 0 = not visible, 100 = fully visible
SelectedProfile Item Default, Full, Minimum, Custom Name of selected profile; Default is standard and delivers the most important information. Full shows all available information and can thus become a long list. In contrast, Minimum only displays basic information.
TextColor Item Color values Text colour
TextSize Integer 0...n Text size
TrayMenu Item Full, ExitOnly, HideMenu, HideAll Enables the restriction or complete deactivation of the context menu and the icon in the info area. Full is default and displays everything. ExitOnly shows only the Exit entry in the context menu. HideMenu compeltely hides the context menu, HideAll also hides the Icon.
WindowPosition Item LeftBottom, LeftTop, RightBottom, RightTop Position of the display relative to the corner of the screen

Color values

For the colors, either the names of the colors in English or RGB values in HTML hexadecimal form can be specified. For example, this is White or #FFFFFF for white. Below is a selection of possible color names and values. A full list of colors is available from Microsoft.

Color Color name Hexadecimal value
BlueViolet #FF8A2BE2
DarkCyan #FF008B8B
DarkSeaGreen #FF8FBC8F
DeepSkyBlue #FF00BFFF
SandyBrown #FFF4A460
Salmon #FFFA8072
YellowGreen #FF9ACD32
RoyalBlue #FF4169E1
DarkGray #FFA9A9A9
Gray #FF808080

Profile to display the information

The values, their sequence and distances can be defined in a profile. It takes the form of a list of item entries as can be seen in the following example:

 <CustomProfile>
    <Name>Custom</Name>
    <DisplayName>Custom Profile</DisplayName>
    <Keys>
      <Item>UserName</Item>
      <Item>MachineName</Item>
      <Item>-</Item>
      <Item>OSEdition</Item>
      <Item>OSVersion</Item>
      <Item>OSBuild</Item>
      <Item>OSCodename</Item>
      <Item>-</Item>
      <Item>Processor</Item>
      <Item>TotalPhysicalMemory</Item>
      <Item>SystemType</Item>
      <Item>-</Item>
      <Item>IPv6AddressLocal</Item>
      <Item>IPAddressLocal</Item>
      <Item>-</Item>
      <Item>CPUUtilization</Item>
      <Item>RAMAvailability</Item>
      <Item>-</Item>
      <Item>LocalDrives</Item>
      <Item>NetworkDrives</Item>
    </Keys>
  </CustomProfile>

Keys

The following table lists all possible keys for the display. If a value for a key is not available, the entire line is hidden.

Key Explanation
BytesReceivedPerSecond Incoming transfer rate of the network adapter with min / max values
BytesSentPerSecond Outgoing transfer rate of the network adapter with min / max values
ConnectionType Type of internet connection: unlimited or limited (e.g. mobile service)
CPUUtilization Actual CPU load with min/max values
GPUMemory Dedicated memory size of the GPU
GPUName Name of the GPU (Graphic Processor)
InfoMessage User-specific additional information, e.g. Contact the IT Help Desk
IPv4AddressLocal Local IPv4 address
IPv4DefaultGateway IPv4 Default Gateway
IPv4DHCPServers List of IPv4 DHCP servers
IPv4DNSServers List of IPv4 DNS servers
IPv4SubnetMask IPv4 subnet mask for the network adapter
IPv4WINSServers List of IPv4 WINS servers
IPv6AddressLinkLocal Link-local IPv6 address
IPv6AddressLocal Local IPv6 address
IPv6DefaultGateway IPv6 default gateway
IPv6DHCPServers List of IPv6 DHCP server
IPv6DNSServers List of IPv6 DNS servers
IPv6WINSServers List of IPv6 WINS servers
IsDHCPEnabled DHCP Activation Status
LocalDrives List of locally connected drives with fill levels
MachineName Name of the machine
NetworkDrives List of connected network drives with fill levels and status
NetworkInterface Name of Network adaptor
OSBuild Windows Version build
OSCodename Codename of Windows Version
OSEdition Windows Edition
OSInstallDate Windows installation date
OSOEMProductKey Windows OEM product key
OSProductKey Windows Product Key
OSVersion Windows Version
PhysicalAddress Physical address of the network card (MAC address)
Processor Processor description
RAMAvailability Currently available memory with min / max values
RemovableDrives List of removable drives with fill levels and status
SystemType Address width of the CPU and the operating system
TotalPhysicalMemory Main memory
UserName User name