Great. I will try it and let you know what I find. Until now I have been using the one labelled as v1 in the other thread, as it is the only one with a transparent background. FYI it works well in WM2003 as long as the settings menu is rewritten.
Rather than calling the date control panel, why don't you include a custom alarm control panel and call it from your plugin? The reason I think it is better, is the default date control panel stops the clock for as long as it is used, making the tim innacurate.
Here is the one I use (saved as alarm.cpl.xml):
<stinger-controlpanel-doc>
<cpl-title res="30013"/>
<characteristic type="Clock">
<parm-query name="AlarmOn"/>
<parm-query name="AlarmTime"/>
</characteristic>
<characteristic type="DeviceInformation">
<parm-query name="BatteryStrength"/>
</characteristic>
</stinger-controlpanel-doc>
Ideally I would also like to include the alarm sound settings but can't get it to work. I tried a few things, the latest saved on my HD is:
<stinger-controlpanel-doc>
<cpl-title res="30030"/>
<menu clsid="{89945303-BCBE-4774B231-0F47112586D6}"/>
<menu clsid="{E64D0F99-A3E3-4D4D-94AB-BB090ACE0431}"/>
<event-listener clsid="{89945303-BCBE-4774B231-0F47112586D6}"/>
<characteristic type="Clock">
<parm-query name="AlarmOn"/>
<parm-query name="AlarmTime"/>
</characteristic>
<characteristic type="Sounds">
<characteristic type="HKCUControlPanelSounds">
<characteristic type="Clock">
<parm-query name="Sound" refresh="1"/>
</characteristic>
</characteristic>
</characteristic>
<characteristic type="DeviceInformation">
<parm-query name="BatteryStrength"/>
</characteristic>
</stinger-controlpanel-doc>