Icons on taskbar

[Guest]

How to I clean up the excessive number of icons on my taskbar ? On XP I can
hide them, but no on 2000. ANy way I can get rid of many of them ?
Thanks.
Jack

 

[Rock]

How to I clean up the excessive number of icons on my taskbar ? On XP I can
hide them, but no on 2000. ANy way I can get rid of many of them ?
Thanks.
Jack

Is your question about XP or Win2k? For Win2k issues post to that
newsgroup. Here is a list of MS public newsgroups:
http://aumha.org/nntp.htm

For XP the first step should be to check in the options for the program
you don't want to start and see if there is a setting to tell it not to
run at startup. The next step is to remove any entries you don't want
from the two startup folders:

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

For anything else uncheck their entries in the startup tab of msconfig:
Start | Run | Msconfig | Ok


Another option is to remove the reference to them from one of these keys
in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce

Make sure you have a backup of the registry using a program like ERUNT
before making any changes to the registry.

ERUNT
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/erunt.txt

Installing and Using ERUNT
http://www.silentrunners.org/sr_eruntuse.html
http://www.winxptutor.com/regback.htm

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

How to I clean up the excessive number of icons on my taskbar ? On XP
I can hide them, but no on 2000. ANy way I can get rid of many of
them ?

Icons on the Task Bar. represent programs you have started. You get rid of
them by closing the programs you represent.

So I assume you don't mean icons on the Task bar, but icons in the
Notification Are (aka "System Tray"), on the right side of the Task Bar,
where the clock is.

If that's what you're referring to, read my standard post on this subject,
below:

First, note that you should be concerned with *all* programs that start
automatically, not just with those that go into the tray. Not all
autostarting programs manifest themselves by an icon in the tray.

On each program you don't want to start automatically, check its Options to
see if it has the choice not to start (make sure you actually choose the
option not to run it, not just a "don't show icon" option). Many can easily
and best be stopped that way. If that doesn't work, run MSCONFIG from the
Start | Run line, and on the Startup tab, uncheck the programs you don't
want to start automatically.

However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose of running
the minimum number of programs. Despite what many people tell you, you
should be concerned, not with how *many* of these programs you run, but
*which*. Some of them can hurt performance severely, but others have no
effect on performance.

Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you should do is
determine what each program is, what its value is to you, and what the cost
in performance is of its running all the time. You can get more information
about these at http://castlecops.com/StartupList.html. If you can't find it
there, try google searches and ask about specifics here.

Once you have that information, you can make an intelligent informed
decision about what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of.

 

[Parhar]

Hey...
Sorry for this self-promotion but I have a product "Taskbar Manager" thats
provides a way to hide icons or buttons on taskbar. Hiding the icon will not
kill the application, it continues to run and can be showed again. You can
also move the icons (taskbar buttons) around using drag and drop. This way
you can organize your taskbar better. TBM also has support to control the
startup programs. Check it out at:

http://www.askarya.com/tm/tm.asp

Regards,
Parhar

 

[Guest]

If you are not concerned with performance issues, as Rock and Ken pointed
out, and you simply want to hide the icons, then you can point your mouse on
the right corner of the taskbar (by the clock, but not over the clock). Right
click and then select "Properties".

On the bottom of the Properties dialogue, you will see a box that says "Hide
inactive icons". Place a checkmark in the box. The result will be a small
group of arrows that will expand when you click on them to allow you access
to any of the programs that were visable before.

Good luck,
Mack