Now Playing
Artwork, the app that’s playing, a progress bar you can drag, and play, pause and skip. Works with Spotify, YouTube in your browser and anything else that shows up in the Windows media flyout.
( Shardz for Windows 11 )
Your desktopin glass.
Now playing, a taskbar player, a clock, edge bars and a system monitor. Rendered as glass.
( Live preview )
Press play, skip a track, or hover the left edge
Everything your desktop was missing.
Six small things that make Windows feel more like yours. Turn on the ones you want.
Taskbar player
A slim player that sits right inside your taskbar, and steps aside when a game or video goes fullscreen.
2001
A clock worth looking at
Any font on your PC, 12 or 24 hour, stacked or classic, gradients and glow. Drag it anywhere; it snaps to the centre.
Hidden edge bars
Push your cursor against a screen edge and your favourite apps, folders and sites slide in. Then they get out of the way.
CPU 13%RAM 44%GPU 8%FPS 144
System monitor
CPU, memory, GPU, VRAM, network, battery and even FPS, as glass rings or as quiet text in a corner.
Real liquid glass
Each widget is rendered on your GPU. It bends and blurs your wallpaper at the edges and catches the light, like glass would.
Lives in the background
Shardz sits in the tray and starts with Windows. No window to keep open, no account to make.
Uses what Windows already knows
Media info comes straight from the Windows media controls, so your player doesn’t need a plugin.
Stays on your PC
Your layout and settings are saved locally. The only thing that ever leaves is the city you pick for the weather widget.
Get Shardz
Install it, pick your widgets, done. Settings are one click away in the tray.
Download Shardz 1.1.2- Version
- 1.1.2
- Size
- 131 MB
- Requires
- Windows 11 · 64-bit (Windows 10 version 2004 or later also works)
Questions
Windows says “Windows protected your PC”. Is that normal?
Yes. Shardz isn’t code-signed yet, so SmartScreen doesn’t recognise it. Click “More info”, then “Run anyway”. You only have to do this once.
Which music and video apps work?
Anything that reports to the Windows media controls, the same ones that appear when you press a volume key: Spotify, browsers playing YouTube or other sites, Apple Music, VLC and more.
Will it slow my PC down?
Widgets only redraw when something changes, the clock and system monitor update once a second, and the audio visualizer only runs while something is playing. You can switch off anything you don’t use.
Why does the FPS counter ask for permission?
Reading another app’s frame rate uses Windows event tracing, which Windows reserves for administrators and the built-in “Performance Log Users” group. Shardz can add you to that group once, with a normal Windows prompt. Everything else works without it.
Does it start with Windows? How do I remove it?
It starts quietly in the tray by default; turn that off in Settings → General. To remove Shardz, uninstall it from Windows Settings → Apps like any other app.