If you’re interested in the internals, this document is worth a look.What I wanted to do was add a few basic Windows tools to the tiled interface.
So, let’s see what can be done with this tool to extend it.įirst, there is a great PDF Document online that describes the process of extending the tiles for OEMS.
If I’m correct, you can fit up to eight more tiles on this interface and decide the order as well. A small text string suggested as “Customized by.” from Microsoft, and in this case Hewlett Packard.ģ. An icon, usually the OEM company’s logo iconĢ. Added tile section contains three distinct sections.ġ. On one OEM modified system, the added tile looks like the image at left. If you do, perhaps an OEM has added tiles. If you don’t have the key, that means tiles haven’t been added. The tile settings themselves are located in a registry key here: The trick was, what can be done to easily extend these tiles? One of only modifications you can make to the Mobility Center is to add more tiles.These tiles are pretty simple in that they modify hardware settings or can launch programs (with a single button or a drop down box). The Windows Mobility Center is located here: C:\Windows\System32\mblctr.exe So, I thought, what if I tried to make the tiles smaller? I would have to find the process itself and see if some resource editing was possible. I felt fairly certain that no one had tried to make this tool a bar or floating dock on Windows. I certainly don’t have access to a wealth of tools, so I’d love to find out if anyone else might have done something with this. The executable file, mblctr.exe, contains little that would indicate a dialog. I thought, what can be done to extend it, or make it smaller? It has a bunch of rather useful tiles and options, but it’s in the most useless form possible (Huge window that sits in background or takes up too much space). Summary: I take on the Windows Mobility Center to see if I can make it more useful. I thought, there must be other stuff I can do with this. I thought, this is cool and useful but really, really ugly. Also possible by OEMs, is extending the interface to include other tiles for controlling a system. The settings are arranged as tiles on a single window with each tile containing a specific setting. This great little tool typically allows mobile users to see and control many of the most obvious and useful settings on a Windows machine. New with Windows Vista (and included in later versions) was the Windows Mobility Center.