VB.net parent a Windows form to the desktop

I am designing my own taskbar and start menu, and I'd like to know how to parent the default taskbar form to the desktop please?

At present, I'm simply making a new full screen form on top of all other windows, closing explorer.exe to allow me to edit everything on screen. However, without explorer running the program shows as an extra option in the alt+tab menu, when things are minimized they appear as boxes (showing and hiding is not an option) and there are pleanty of other issues that are caused by this.

The only solution (which I have seen someone else work out) is to parent the form to the desktop. Please can anyone help?