Change/update Startmenue, Taskbar, Systemtray

Hello folks!

I'm actually not asking for myself, but for a friend without access to the internet ... I hope I can still do the transmission since I never wrote windows specific code ...

THE PROBLEM:

My friend was reading in the registry of his Windows XP and found some keys controlling the Taskbar. Now he wants to write a cute little program to circumvent the Regedit. So far he managed to change the values, but the change is not reflected in the taskbar until he logs off or does some kind of manual refresh (F5?).

Next he observed what happens in the system when the Update button in the properties dialog is pressed. There is a flood of several hundret system messages/events.

He was playing around with those but could not find the essential ones.

THE QUESTION:

Which messages/events will cause a refresh & rereading of the registry values?

Is there a preferred method to tell the taskbar/startmenue/systemtray to rescan the registry for the correct appearence?

Thanks a lot
y0011482

It really depends on what he's doing. Some things can be done with a COM interface (Shortcuts created in the start menu folder), some things can be done with an API (System tray icons).

It depends on exactly what he's trying