Hide the Notification Area Icons in Windows

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If you want a clean looking taskbar, then here is how you can hide the icons in the notification area.

Follow the steps below to hide the icons:

  1. Open Notepad.
  2. Copy and paste the following into the new text document:
  3. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] “NoTrayItemsDisplay”=dword:00000001

  4. Save the document as hide.reg.
  5. Double-click the new file to merge it into the Registry.
  6. Confirm UAC prompt.
  7. Reboot your computer.

The Notification icons will be hidden.

To unhide the icons do this:

  1. Open Notepad.
  2. Copy and paste the following into the new text document:
  3. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] “NoTrayItemsDisplay”=dword:00000000

  4. Save the document as unhide.reg.
  5. Double-click the new file to merge it into the Registry.
  6. Confirm UAC prompt.
  7. Reboot your computer..
Another way to do it is:
  • Press the Windows Key and “R”.
  • Type regedit and hit enter. Click Yes for the UAC prompt.
  • Navigate to the following registry key:
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

  • In the right side, create a new 32-bit DWORD value and then change the value data to 1.
  • This will hide the notification area.

  • Now, to show it again, change the value data to 0.
To see the change log off and Log on.
This tweak works with Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.