Configuration File
Everything O&O DeskInfo knows about itself lives in a single XML file. The tray icon menu covers the settings needed in everyday use; the configuration file covers all of them — including margins, exact colors, graph dimensions, history length, your own help desk message and the restrictions for managed workstations.
This page is the complete reference.
Where the configuration file is stored
The file is always called OODeskInfo.cfg. O&O DeskInfo looks for it in this order:
- The path given with the
/cfgparameter, if one was passed on the command line. - Next to
OODeskInfo.exe— if a file namedOODeskInfo.cfgexists in the program folder, that file is always used. This is what makes fully portable operation from a USB stick possible: settings travel with the application. - In the user profile — otherwise
%LocalAppData%\OO Software\OO DeskInfo\OODeskInfo.cfgis used and created if it does not exist.
The easiest way to get a valid file to edit: start O&O DeskInfo once, quit it, and open the file that has been created in %LocalAppData%\OO Software\OO DeskInfo\. It contains every setting with its current value.
Structure and rules
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Settings xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<Language>en</Language>
<PanelPosition>RightTop</PanelPosition>
<TextSize>12</TextSize>
</Settings>
A few rules to keep in mind:
- The root element is
<Settings>and it must not declare a default XML namespace. - Element names are case-sensitive and must match the names in this reference exactly.
- Boolean values are
trueorfalse(lowercase). - Colors are either an English color name (
White,Black,Red,Green,Orange) or a hex value in the form#RRGGBBor#AARRGGBB. - Every element is optional. A missing element means the default value is used, so a minimal file with two settings is perfectly valid.
- The order of the elements does not matter, but keeping the order the application writes makes files easier to compare.
Changes are applied automatically
O&O DeskInfo watches its configuration file. Save a change and it is picked up about a second later and applied — no restart needed. This makes trying out values quite pleasant: keep the file open in an editor next to your desktop and watch the effect.
The one-second pause is deliberate. Editors often write a file in several steps, so O&O DeskInfo waits until the file has been quiet for a moment before reading it — that way a half-written file is never applied.
Most changes are applied by rebuilding the display in place, which keeps the collected graph history. Four settings reach further into the system and restart the application instead, because they depend on resources that are only set up once per process:
Settings you change from the tray menu take effect immediately as well and are written to the file right away.
A running instance saves its own settings to the file — for example the cached column layout. If you edit the file while O&O DeskInfo is running, that is fine; but do not edit a copy you took earlier and write it back, because you would be putting stale values back in.
If the file cannot be parsed — a missing closing tag, an invalid value, a stray character — O&O DeskInfo creates a timestamped backup copy next to it with the extension .invalid and then starts over with default settings. Your broken file is never silently deleted, so you can find the mistake and copy your values back.
General
Language
Type: text · Default: empty (system language)
The language of the user interface. Use an empty element or system to follow the Windows display language.
| Value | Language |
|---|---|
(empty) or system | Windows display language |
en | English |
de | German |
fr | French |
Also available in the tray menu and as the /lang command line parameter.
<Language>en</Language>
LogEnabled
Type: boolean · Default: false
Writes a detailed log to %LocalAppData%\OO Software\OO DeskInfo\Logs\OODeskInfo.log. Enable this only for troubleshooting, and attach the log when you contact support.
ShowWelcome
Type: boolean · Default: true
Whether the welcome wizard is shown at startup. It is set to false automatically after the wizard has been completed once. Set it back to true to show the wizard again on the next start — or set it to false in a prepared file so that users on a managed machine never see it.
UpdateSpeed
Type: number (seconds) · Default: 5
How often the displayed values are refreshed. The tray menu offers 1 (Fast), 5 (Normal) and 10 (Slow); any other value is accepted here and shown as Custom in the menu. The intervals for drive activity and for the CPU/RAM counters are derived from this value — see Update speed.
UseEfficiencyMode
Type: boolean · Default: true
Asks Windows to run O&O DeskInfo as a background process with reduced priority and, on supported hardware, on efficiency cores. Has no effect on Windows versions without Efficiency Mode.
LaunchTaskManager
Type: boolean · Default: true
Whether a double-click on the tray icon opens the Windows Task Manager.
Position and monitors
PanelPosition
Type: LeftTop | RightTop | LeftBottom | RightBottom · Default: RightTop
The screen corner the display occupies.
Monitor
Type: number · Default: 0
Zero-based index of the monitor the display appears on. 0 is the first monitor. Ignored when ShowOnAllMonitors is true.
ShowOnAllMonitors
Type: boolean · Default: false
true shows the information on every connected monitor simultaneously, using the same profile, position and appearance everywhere.
TopMargin, RightMargin, BottomMargin, LeftMargin
Type: number (pixels) · Default: 0
Distance between the display and the screen edges, in desktop-integrated mode. Useful when a taskbar, a dock or a wallpaper element is in the way.
<TopMargin>40</TopMargin>
<RightMargin>24</RightMargin>
<BottomMargin>0</BottomMargin>
<LeftMargin>0</LeftMargin>
IsIntegratedWithDesktop
Type: boolean · Default: true
true draws the display onto the desktop background, behind the desktop icons. false switches to the sliding window.
DisplayAlwaysOnTop
Type: boolean · Default: false
Sliding-window mode only: keeps the window above all other windows.
ShowButtonOnDesktop
Type: boolean · Default: true
Sliding-window mode only: shows the tab button at the screen edge. With false, the window is toggled from the tray icon.
ButtonYPosition
Type: number · Default: 175
Vertical position of the tab button in pixels. Normally set by dragging the button with the mouse.
Appearance
AutoAdjustTextColor
Type: boolean · Default: true
true chooses the text color automatically from the brightness of the wallpaper — black over bright backgrounds, white over dark ones — and ignores TextColor. Set it to false to use a fixed color.
TextColor
Type: color · Default: White
The fixed text color. Only effective when AutoAdjustTextColor is false. Any color is allowed; the tray menu marks values outside its own list as Custom.
The colors offered in the menu are:
| Menu entry | Value |
|---|---|
| White | White |
| Light gray | #F2F2F2 |
| Gray | #D9D9D9 |
| Dark gray | #838383 |
| Black | Black |
| Red | Red |
| Green | Green |
| Blue | #3082CF |
TextSize
Type: number (points) · Default: 12
Font size of the display. The menu offers 10, 12 and 14; other values are accepted and shown as Custom.
DisplayOpacity
Type: number (percent) · Default: 80
Opacity of the whole information panel. The menu offers 100, 80 and 40.
Opacity
Type: number (percent) · Default: 80
Sliding-window mode only: opacity of the panel background. The menu offers 100, 80 and 40.
PanelColor
Type: color · Default: #3082CF (blue)
Sliding-window mode only: color of the tab button. The menu offers blue (#3082CF), White, Black, Red, Green and orange (#FF6A00).
FillColorNormal
Type: color · Default: #FF82BC1D (green)
Color of the drive fill level bar below 90 % occupancy.
FillColorWarning
Type: color · Default: #FFFFBC00 (yellow)
Color of the drive fill level bar from 90 % to below 95 % occupancy.
FillColorCritical
Type: color · Default: #FFDD4A17 (red)
Color of the drive fill level bar from 95 % occupancy.
FillColorBackground
Type: color · Default: #FF838383 (gray)
Background color of the drive fill level bar.
Column layout
UseBalancedColumnDistribution
Type: boolean · Default: true
true distributes the information across the columns using a weight-based algorithm: every label row and drive entry counts as 1, a performance graph counts proportionally to its height, and groups are never split. false falls back to a simple sequential distribution.
BalancedColumnAlignment
Type: RightBound | LeftBound · Default: RightBound
Decides which column may be shorter when the columns cannot be balanced exactly. RightBound shortens the leftmost column (ideal for right-aligned positions), LeftBound shortens the rightmost column (ideal for left-aligned positions).
Graphs and performance monitoring
ShowCPUGraph
Type: boolean · Default: true
Shows the CPU history graph, provided the active profile contains it.
ShowRAMGraph
Type: boolean · Default: true
Shows the RAM history graph, provided the active profile contains it.
ShowGPUGraph
Type: boolean · Default: true
Shows the GPU history graph, provided the active profile contains it. GPU rows hide themselves anyway on systems that do not report GPU data.
ShowNetworkGraph
Type: boolean · Default: true
Shows both network traffic graphs (sent and received), provided the active profile contains them.
ShowNetworkTrafficInBitsPerSecond
Type: boolean · Default: true
true displays network traffic in bits per second with decimal prefixes (b/s, Kb/s, Mb/s, Gb/s). false displays it in bytes per second with binary prefixes (B/s, KB/s, MB/s, GB/s).
PerformanceGraphHeight
Type: number (pixels) · Default: 48
Height of every performance graph. Taller graphs make small fluctuations easier to see, but carry more weight in the column balancing.
PerformanceGraphMinWidth
Type: number (pixels) · Default: 200
Minimum width of a performance graph. Graphs grow beyond this to fill the available column width.
MaxHistoryItems
Type: number · Default: 1024
How many samples are kept per metric. At typical update intervals 1024 samples cover roughly 17 to 34 minutes. Increase for longer-range minimum and maximum values, reduce to save memory.
PerformanceAverageMinSampleCount
Type: number · Default: 32
How many samples must be collected before an average value is displayed. Prevents a jumpy average right after startup. The value is capped internally at MaxHistoryItems.
Drives and USB devices
ShowDriveActivity
Type: boolean · Default: true
Shows read/write activity indicators for every drive.
ShowUnknownUSBDeviceNotification
Type: boolean · Default: false
Shows a notification when a USB storage device is connected that has not been trusted before.
TrustedUSBDevices
Type: list of text · Default: empty
USB devices that have been permanently trusted. Remove an entry to make the device trigger the warning again, or remove the whole element to reset all decisions.
<TrustedUSBDevices>
<string>USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_SANDISK&PROD_ULTRA&REV_1.00\4C530001…</string>
</TrustedUSBDevices>
Network
NetworkAdapter
Type: text · Default: empty (automatic)
Description of the network adapter whose values are displayed. Leave the element out for automatic selection. The exact string must match the adapter description Windows reports — the safest way to obtain it is to pick the adapter once from the tray menu and then read the value out of the file.
Profiles
SelectedProfile
Type: text · Default: Default
Which profile is active.
| Value | Profile |
|---|---|
Default | Default profile |
Full | Full profile |
Minimum | Minimum profile |
DriveLED | Drives only |
| any other value | The profile defined in CustomProfile |
CustomProfile
Type: element · Default: none
Your own profile definition. The structure and all available keys are described in Display Profiles.
<CustomProfile>
<Name>Custom</Name>
<DisplayName>IT Support Profile</DisplayName>
<ShowLabels>true</ShowLabels>
<Keys>
<Item>InfoMessage</Item>
<Item>-</Item>
<Item>UserAndMachine</Item>
<Item>-</Item>
<Item>OS</Item>
</Keys>
<ColumnAssignments>InfoMessage:0;UserAndMachine:0;OS:0</ColumnAssignments>
</CustomProfile>
Deployment and restrictions
These four settings exist for managed environments. Enterprise Deployment describes how to combine them.
InfoMessage
Type: text · Default: empty
A free-text line displayed above the system information — typically your help desk contact details. It is only shown if the active profile contains the InfoMessage key, which all predefined profiles do.
<InfoMessage>IT Help Desk: helpdesk@example.com | Phone: +49 30 1234-5678</InfoMessage>
SetAutoRun
Type: boolean · Default: not set
Forces the autostart entry without asking the user. true creates it, false removes it. If the element is absent, the autostart state is left as the user configured it.
IsRestricted
Type: boolean · Default: not set
true puts O&O DeskInfo into a read-only mode: the configuration file is no longer written and the tray menu is not displayed. Users can neither change nor accidentally destroy the configuration you rolled out.
TrayMenu
Type: Full | ExitOnly | HideMenu | HideAll · Default: Full
How much of the tray icon and its menu the user gets.
| Value | Tray icon | Menu |
|---|---|---|
Full | visible | complete |
ExitOnly | visible | only Quit |
HideMenu | visible | none |
HideAll | hidden | none |
Values managed by the application
These elements appear in the file but are maintained by O&O DeskInfo itself. There is no reason to edit them, and a prepared configuration file for a rollout should simply leave them out.
| Element | Meaning |
|---|---|
NewsletterSubscribed | Whether the newsletter was subscribed from the product overview. |
ScrollViewerPosition | Scroll position of the display. |
SavedColumnLayout | The last calculated column layout, cached for a faster start. |
LayoutEnvironmentFingerprint | Fingerprint of the display environment (monitor, resolution, text size, DPI, profile) used to detect when the layout must be recalculated. |
WindowPosition, AppViewMode | Inherited from the shared O&O settings base and not used by O&O DeskInfo. |
Complete example
A configuration for a support workstation: German interface, bottom-left corner, large readable text, help desk message, autostart enforced and the user interface locked down.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Settings xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<!-- General -->
<Language>de</Language>
<LogEnabled>false</LogEnabled>
<ShowWelcome>false</ShowWelcome>
<UpdateSpeed>5</UpdateSpeed>
<!-- Position -->
<PanelPosition>LeftBottom</PanelPosition>
<Monitor>0</Monitor>
<ShowOnAllMonitors>false</ShowOnAllMonitors>
<IsIntegratedWithDesktop>true</IsIntegratedWithDesktop>
<TopMargin>0</TopMargin>
<BottomMargin>48</BottomMargin>
<LeftMargin>24</LeftMargin>
<!-- Appearance -->
<AutoAdjustTextColor>true</AutoAdjustTextColor>
<TextSize>14</TextSize>
<DisplayOpacity>100</DisplayOpacity>
<UseBalancedColumnDistribution>true</UseBalancedColumnDistribution>
<BalancedColumnAlignment>LeftBound</BalancedColumnAlignment>
<!-- Graphs -->
<ShowCPUGraph>true</ShowCPUGraph>
<ShowRAMGraph>true</ShowRAMGraph>
<ShowGPUGraph>false</ShowGPUGraph>
<ShowNetworkGraph>true</ShowNetworkGraph>
<ShowNetworkTrafficInBitsPerSecond>true</ShowNetworkTrafficInBitsPerSecond>
<PerformanceGraphHeight>64</PerformanceGraphHeight>
<!-- Drives and USB -->
<ShowDriveActivity>true</ShowDriveActivity>
<ShowUnknownUSBDeviceNotification>true</ShowUnknownUSBDeviceNotification>
<!-- Profile -->
<SelectedProfile>Custom</SelectedProfile>
<CustomProfile>
<Name>Custom</Name>
<DisplayName>Support</DisplayName>
<ShowLabels>true</ShowLabels>
<Keys>
<Item>InfoMessage</Item>
<Item>-</Item>
<Item>UserAndMachine</Item>
<Item>-</Item>
<Item>OS</Item>
<Item>-</Item>
<Item>CPU</Item>
<Item>-</Item>
<Item>NetworkBasic</Item>
<Item>-</Item>
<Item>LocalDrives</Item>
<Item>-</Item>
<Item>Performance</Item>
</Keys>
<ColumnAssignments>InfoMessage:0;UserAndMachine:0;OS:0;CPU:0;NetworkBasic:1;LocalDrives:1;Performance:2</ColumnAssignments>
</CustomProfile>
<!-- Deployment -->
<InfoMessage>IT Help Desk: helpdesk@example.com | Phone: +49 30 1234-5678</InfoMessage>
<SetAutoRun>true</SetAutoRun>
<IsRestricted>true</IsRestricted>
<TrayMenu>ExitOnly</TrayMenu>
</Settings>
XML comments (<!-- … -->) are allowed while you edit the file, but O&O DeskInfo does not preserve them: as soon as the application writes the file itself, the comments are gone. Keep your commented master copy in your deployment share, not on the client.