Permanently Hiding the "Wireless No Connection" Icon in System Tra

[Baron]

I am running XP SP3 on a Dell laptop with wired and wireless nextwork
controllers installed. I have noticed that the Hiding Icons feature on the
Customize Notifications dialog (Toolbar Properties | Customize) works
differently for wired connection then it does for Wireless connection.

Example:

My LAN properties (Control Panel | Network Connections | Local Area Network
| Properties) have the following settings:
* Show icon in notification area when connected (deselected)
* Notify me when this connection has no connectivity (deselected)

Behavior: When the wired connection is connected or disconnected, no icon
appears in the System Tray (as expected).


My Wireless properties (Control Panel | Network Connections | Local Area
Network | Properties) have the following settings:
* Show icon in notification area when connected (deselected)
* Notify me when this connection has no connectivity (deselected)

Behavior: When the wireless connection is disconnected, the icon appears in
the System Tray (NOT as expected). In addition, I have selected "Always Hide"
for the "Wireless - Not Connected" icon on the Customize Notifications dialog
(Toolbar Properties | Customize).

Question: How can I permanently hide (not disable) the "Wireless No
Connection" Icon in System Tray? I can make a registry entry to disable the
both wire and wireless icons permanantely
(HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{7007ACCF-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E} ). However,
the wireless icon is useful when connecting to a wireless network and I would
like it to behave like the Wired icon by conforming to the settings in the
Customize Notifications dialog and the Wireless properties dialog.

 

[smlunatick]

I am running XP SP3 on a Dell laptop with wired and wireless nextwork
controllers installed. I have noticed that the Hiding Icons feature on the
Customize Notifications dialog (Toolbar Properties | Customize) works
differently for wired connection then it does for Wireless connection.

Example:

My LAN properties (Control Panel | Network Connections | Local Area Network
| Properties) have the following settings:
* Show icon in notification area when connected (deselected)
* Notify me when this connection has no connectivity (deselected)

Behavior: When the wired connection is connected or disconnected, no icon
appears in the System Tray (as expected).

My Wireless properties (Control Panel | Network Connections | Local Area
Network | Properties) have the following settings:
* Show icon in notification area when connected (deselected)
* Notify me when this connection has no connectivity (deselected)

Behavior: When the wireless connection is disconnected, the icon appears in
the System Tray (NOT as expected). In addition, I have selected "Always Hide"
for the "Wireless - Not Connected" icon on the Customize Notifications dialog
(Toolbar Properties | Customize).

Question: How can I permanently hide (not disable) the "Wireless No
Connection" Icon in System Tray? I can make a registry entry to disable the
both wire and wireless icons permanantely
(HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{7007ACCF-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E} ). However,
the wireless icon is useful when connecting to a wireless network and I would
like it to behave like the Wired icon by conforming to the settings in the
Customize Notifications dialog and the Wireless properties dialog.

Several laptops have an "external" button to enable / disable wireless
adapters. When a device is 'disabled", Windows does not show any icon
in the System Tray. It is easy to press this button to turn off / on
the wireless adapter.

Not sure about your model.

 

[Baron]

I was not able to solved this issue using registry tweaks. However, I was
able to create a work-around solution. Essentially I created two batch files.
One file will enable the internal wireless card and start the Wireless Zero
Configuration service. The second batch file will disable the internal
wireless card and stop the Wireless Zero Configuration service. Not only will
this get ride of the enoying wireless icon in the system tray, it will also
save power on laptops. Here are the details:

Create a start batch file with the following lines:

devcon enable *VEN_8086*DEV_4223*SUBSYS_10018086*REV_05*
NET START "Wireless Zero Configuration"


Create a stop batch file with the following lines:

devcon disable *VEN_8086*DEV_4223*SUBSYS_10018086*REV_05*
NET STOP "Wireless Zero Configuration"


Note1: devcon is a free Microsoft utility, which can be downloaded from
their site. It's one exe file that you place in the path (e.g. C:\).

Note2: The device above (*VEN_8086*DEV_4223*SUBSYS_10018086*REV_05*) is the
identification string used to id my wireless card on my machine. You will
need to use the devcon find * command to find the correct devise id for your
card then substitue you value for the value
*VEN_8086*DEV_4223*SUBSYS_10018086*REV_05* above.

For power users that want to add one more step. You can use AutoIt3 to
execute the two batch file lines in each file above, that add a third step to
display a list of wireless networks in range. This would be similar to
selecting Network Connactions from Control Panel and selecting your Wireless
Card. The AutoIt code that will do this is below:

Run("explorer shell:ConnectionsFolder", "", @SW_HIDE)
WinWaitActive("Network Connections")
$CLVItem = ControlListView("Network
Connections","","SysListView321","FindItem","Wireless - Intel 2915ABG")
ControlListView("Network Connections","","SysListView321","SelectClear")
ControlListView("Network Connections","","SysListView321","Select",$CLVItem)
send("{ENTER}")


Note: You must replace "Wireless - Intel 2915ABG" with the name of your
wireless card in Network Connections (in Control Panel) for this code to work
for you. If all goes well, a list of wireless networks in range will be
displayed after your card is enabled and WZC service is started.

Hope this helps.

Baron