System tray - can icons be deleted?

[George]

The list of icons in my system tray grows with each new program I install.
It seems that programs know you can delete their desktop icons but not their
system tray icons.

Can they be deleted? I don't mean hidden - I can do that. And does each icon
actually represent a program running in the background, taking up memory?
Some of these icons belong to programs I use once or twice a year, and some
belong to programs I no longer have on my computer.

I like to run a clean ship!

George

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi George,

If they are in the system tray, that means they are loading into memory at
boot. To disable this annoying behavior, check within the program's options.
If that doesn't help, start/run msconfig and look at the startup tab.
Uncheck the ones you don't want.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone

 

[Andrew Meyer]

The list of icons in my system tray grows with each new program I install.
It seems that programs know you can delete their desktop icons but not their
system tray icons.

Can they be deleted? I don't mean hidden - I can do that. And does each icon
actually represent a program running in the background, taking up memory?
Some of these icons belong to programs I use once or twice a year, and some
belong to programs I no longer have on my computer.

I like to run a clean ship!

George

I the icon is showing up in the system tray then it means that some
part of that program is still there and is running on the PC. Other
than hiding them the only other way is to uninstall them.

 

[George]

Thanks Rick.

That seems to have worked on most things. I still have an annoying tray icon
from my HP Photosmart 7660 printer that tells me there is "no expansion
chip" in the device. Totally useless negative information since I don't
intend ever to buy one. Although I have the "always Hide" option in the
taskbar, it is still there, and I can see no options in the program to
disable it.

George