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Completely Disable the System Tray Icons in Windows 7

By Codrut Nistor

Posted in How-to, Windows-7

In any version of Microsoft Windows operating system system tray plays an important role by allowing users to identify which applications are active and initialized in the. Also system tray allows users to customize the time and date of the computer which is played. As the operating system grows mature and users install several applications on it the items in system tray also increase in numbers hence increasing the size of the space that system tray consumes. This might result in reduced space available for the opened applications on which user might wish to work. Although Windows 7 offers a default feature of hiding all the items displayed in the system tray which can be displayed by clicking on the arrow button available next to it. However administrators can still completely disable the system tray icons if they find themselves uncomfortable with it. As a Windows 7 administrator if you want to disable system tray icons you are required to follow the steps given as below:

  1. Logon to Windows 7 computer with the account that is administrative and elevated privileges.

  2. Click on Start button and at the bottom of start menu in search box type REGEDIT and press enter key.

  3. On Windows Registry Editor box locate HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer from the left pane.

  4. In the right pane right click anywhere and click on New.

  5. From the submenu click on DWORD (32-bit) Value and specify NoTrayItemsDisplayas name.

  6. Double-click on the newly created key and under Value data field give the value as 1.

  7. Once done click on Ok button to save the changes and if required restart the computer.