How To: Remove Notification Area Icons In Windows 7
Posted January 21, 2009 – 12:38 pm in: Windows 7, Windows 7 GuidesI know many of you don’t like the idea of removing the Sound and Network icon from the Notification Area but there are few users who still like to keep the taskbar clutter free. If you are in the second category, then good thing is that you can easily remove both the icons from the system tray in Windows 7 easily.
In fact you can remove any system tray icon like Action Center or any other program icons. You can remove all those icons in the Start menu properties window.
1. Right-click on the Taskbar and select Properties.
2. Under the Notification Area, click the button Customize.
3. Look for the icons and select the Behaviors as “Hide icon and notifications” to hide icon as well as other related notifications. If you like to get the notifications, then select “Show only notifications” and click OK.
4. Repeat the same procedure for all the icons out there and then close the window.
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9 Comments
When an app is uninstalled shouldn’t those taskbar icons go with it? I have a number of icons listed that belong to programs that I’ve tried with Win 7 but didn’t keep. How do I remove (not hide) them?
to the poster above: acpiper
Yep, it’s very annoying. I hope the final/RTM of 7 manages this better.
Anyhow, the only solution to reset/remove old icons from the Notification Area Icons (that actually works) is to do this:
1. Download and install CCleaner
2. Run it; on the main page near the bottom, check the box for “Tray Notification cache”
3. Run Cleaner
4. Close CCleaner
5. End and restart explorer.exe by starting Task Manager (Ctrl-Shift-Esc), right click “explore.exe”, end process and confirm – you’ll lose the task bar but then just goto File – New Task (run) and type “explorer.exe” without the “” and then enter.
Done!
…kinda misleading. You are not REMOVING the icons, but hiding them.
I tried Tray Cleaner, CCleaner and still have the icons showing as well tried looking in the registry.
Nope, the best way to remove is to do it via the regedit
. Go to the registry editor. (Start/Run/regedit) – If you don’t know what this is, don’t do it!
2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify
3. Delete “PasteIconsSteam” and “IconStreams” keys.
4. Close the registry editor and then go into Task Manager and kill the “Explorer.exe” process.
5. Restart your computer and hopefully the uninstalled programs should disappear from your notification area!
Tom aka Iomegaman (not Tom of Tomax7)
Tom aka Iomegaman, very nice tip, thank you. It worked just fine.
marinildac
Tom aka Iomegaman, thanks again for a helpful tip. Anyone suffers the same issues can solve as above.
Very helpful tomax7… thnx
Not sure if the Tom being referred to above “Tom aka Iomegaman” is referring to me, but I’m not him/her/it.
I’m me
tomax7.
i’m uninstall some program but icons didn’t delete in notification area. i wont to delete them in this area, and not run in the start up. on the other hand there are not in the system configuration.