Hey all, I think many of you will enjoy this information.. 
Here's how the volume bar works in all Media Center (2004-2005) and how to change it :
Create a .txt file with the following :
----------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\VolumeDisplay]
"Disable"=dword:00000000
"FontSize"=dword:00000024
"Color"=dword:00ffffff
"Timeout"=dword:000003e8
----------------------------------------------------
Don't include the --------
Now here are what the settings do:
Disable: (enable or disable the volume bar)
- 00000000 (bar is shown)
- 00000001 (bar is hidden)
FontSize: (decide the font sized used to display the word "volume")
- 00000024 is font size 36 (it's hexadecimal value), for exemple 00000014 is fontsize 20, etc..
Color: (the color of the control bar and of the word "volume")
00ffffff corresponds to white, 00000000 corresponds to black. also hexadecimal.
If you want an easy way to find out, just check the color you want in HTML:
If HTML is #00AAFF for exemple, then you need to put value 00FFAA00, or for HTML #556677, the value will be 00776655
Timeout: (it represent the duration of displaying the volume bar)
000003e8 corrsponds to 1000 ms = 1 seconde. For exemple, 1,5 second is 000005dc, or 2 second is 000007d0
So replace accordingly the above with the value that you like, save as "bar.reg" then double click on it and reboot the PC!
Enjoy, it was quite a hassle to find those keys because they don't exist initially! (and because for each try, I must reboot.. :/ )
Later,
Alcahest