<p>I'm using a Delphi 2009 VCL TProgressBar as a kind of "empty/full" gauge.</p>

<p>On Vista, with Aero theme enabled, this has an animation associated with it, which is annoying and inappropriate for an gauge.</p>

<p>Is there any way of disabling this (NOT by adjusting user's theme settings!) to prevent the animation on this control?</p>

<p>To clarify, I want something basically identical to the 'disk space used' meters in Windows Explorer. No animation, but still with a nice border and shading effects.</p>

<p>Update:</p>

<p>I understand that I need a "meter", rather than a true progress bar. How can a themed meter be implemented using the standard windows progress bar control?</p>

As per the
Vista UI guidelines for progress bars
you should not be using a TProgressBar for such purposes at all, it states:
Use progress bars only for progress. Use meters to indicate percentages that aren't related to progress.
There are a lot of Third-Party components (for example
Abakus VCL
) that are aimed at Process Automation applications and the like, maybe you could use one of these controls instead?