First 3rd party application for Vista Mobility Center: Turn off internal display

We pick on Microsoft for including obtrusive security features in Windows Vista, breaking backward compatibility with many applications, and generally making blazing fast machines (under Windows XP) seem like Commodore 64s. But Microsoft did get a few things right with Vista, including the addition of a Windows Mobility Center that makes it easy to access some of the features notebook PC users need most.

But while Microsoft packs the basics like display brightness, battery and wireless settings, there are a few other things that would be nice to have, like say the option of turning off your display with a button press.

Microsoft lets computer manufacturers create custom Mobility Center tiles, but has discouraged other 3rd party developers from making custom Mobility Center applications. While some people would see that as a reason to give up and move onto another project, others take it as a challenge. And so Rafael Rivera Jr. decided to see if he could answer a request Long Zheng made earlier this year to add an internal display control applet to Windows Mobiltity Center.

The end result is the first publicly available 3rd party add-on for Windows Mobility Center that we're aware of. You can download the tile from Rivera's site. It comes in x86 and x64 varieties. Once you install the tile, you should notice a new "Internal Display" option pop up in your Mobility Center, which you can bring up pressing Windows+X on your Windows Vista machine.

Rivera's blog post also includes information that could come in handy for anyone looking to develop their own Mobility Center tiles.

[via istartedsomething]

Tags: long=zheng, mobility-center, osupdates, rafael-rivera-jr, windows-mobility-center