Thanks for the information! Qt is fine. I might switch back to Linux in the future, and want to be able to carry over anything I write if I do. I have a working prototype in Python using PySide already (which handles the system tray well), but I figure I ought to know a compiled language with static typing. (I know interpreted vs. compiled is a questionable distinction to make these days; what I want is a language that comes with something to produce independent executable files as part of its basic tooling.

I've tried Haskell Platform. I had a lot of path problems in trying to install gtk2hs - it wasn't always obvious where things were (nor that Stack came with its own mingw, so I got my own, and that caused more problems... eventually I wiped everything Haskell-related and started from scratch with Platform), and there's also a known problem with gtk2hs where you have to edit some cabal files to make installation work on Windows, so I would've had to do local installs. I think I got gtk2hs to install at one point, and even to compile their sample hello-world program, but trying to actually run it gave a litany of obscure errors. WxHaskell has an installer batch file, but it just spewed errors at me. I spent about a week trying to install various GUI libraries, and the only one I tried that I managed to get working was gi-gtk... which doesn't have system tray support.

I'm hoping to avoid C++ and Java, but if I have to bite that bullet, I will.