While most of us like to keep the items in our system tray to a relative minimum, there is no doubt that some programs are best served by being available in the system tray. The problem is this functionality has to be built into the program for this to happen. To get around this limitation, check out TrayEverything.

Thanks to TrayEverything this can be done with two simple clicks! The main window shows a list of the currently opened programs with their associated windows, from which you can minimize to tray every window. You can also choose not to show any icon in the system tray, and to hide the selected window with a password, to keep your “work” secret!

This utility pretty much does everything you would need, including completely hiding minimized applications. Additionally, no installation is required and it works on any version of Windows (I have briefly used it on Vista and it seems to work fine).