As far as I've used this ActiveX Control, the time is limited to HH:MM [AM/PM]. The bars that you may see may simply be because you may have added additional panels and have not entered a minimum width value.

You can break up the status bar into different panels, change the way the panels look, add an icon to each panel, etc. You also have several define panel.styles which can display your NumLock, CapsLock, Insert & Scroll Lock status.

You can for example create a panel in the status bar where you can place text for your user information.

Insert a panel, specify a size, and set it's key value to "comments"

In your application you say: THISFORM.stsPanel.Panels("comments").Text = "Please wait while processing..."