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Menu Extras vs. System Tray

Overview

Both operating systems provide a dedicated location for adjusting system-wide settings and storing small icons to quickly perform a task. OS X has menu "extras," which sit next to the clock and Spotlight icon at the right of the menu bar, while XP has the system notification area (or "tray" for short), also located next to the clock.

In general, OS X's menu extras are more informative than XP's tray icons. For example, OS X's sound menu extra indicates how loud your system volume is:

XP's tray icon only tells you if your volume is muted or not:

The same is true of wireless signal strength - OS X's menu extra visually shows you how strong the signal is, whereas XP's tray icon only displays whether or not a signal is present.

Mac OS X

OS X's menu extras provide quick access to system activities such as changing screen resolution, checking laptop battery status, adjusting system volume, and checking wireless signal strength.

Clicking a menu extra pops up a menu or control. For example, the sound menu extra pops up a slider for adjusting volume. Usually, menu extras are designed for system-wide functions and are not tied to specific applications (iChat's menu extra being an odd exception).

Menu extras are almost exclusively greyscale, which keeps them from being a distraction. Color is used only to enhance an icon's meaning or to attract attention to something important:

Windows XP

Windows XP's tray serves a somewhat different function. Developers can create tray icons that essentially act as a way to control an application no matter where you are in the system or what you are doing. Thus, most tray icons are tied to specific applications (XP's sound tray icon being an exception).

Given this design, tray icons behave in a unique way. Single- or right-clicking a tray icon will pop up a menu or control of related actions; double-clicking a tray icon, however, will launch the associated application. In this way, tray icons can behave as both a quick way to access settings or controls as well as application launchers.

If you have many tray icons, you can configure which ones you would like to see at all times. If you have hidden tray icons, an arrow at the left will let you expand the tray to view all of them.

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Conclusion

While OS X's tray icons tend to be more informative and better designed, XP's are more powerful in that they can double as application launchers. In addition, XP lets you hide tray icons that aren't regularly used so that they don't clutter up the taskbar. OS X lacks this ability (and, since menu extras share the same space as application menus, an application with many menus may cover up menu extra icons - see Menu Bars).

Mac OS X: 7
Windows XP: 7

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