Tidy up system tray

[RoseW]

Rosie wrote - When I use 'Hide inactive icons' in the system tray, I find
that after a reboot the icons I have hidden show again. What I am looking
for then is a utility that will allow me to permanently hide or show icons
as I want

This isn't a 'utility' but a 'tweak'

Check out the reference site http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm

and under section T there is this download available that has scripts which
includes 'hide the notification tray icons'
Scroll down to Taskbar...then look for Notification Area
the link will go to the page below

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm

Further down is
Taskbar - Grouping

Right click the Notification Tray/Properties/Uncheck Group Similar Taskbar
Buttons.

Change number of windows that are open before XP will start grouping them on
the Taskbar: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_taskbargrouping.htm

then there are several listings for Kelly's tweaks. html
Manual Editing:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\TaskbarGroupSize
and set it to:

0 = Group least used apps first
1 = Group app with most windows first
2 - n = Group apps with this many windows

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\TaskbarGlomming
0 = Don't group
1 = Group

Standard behavior is to group least used apps first.

RoseW

 

[Rosie]

Rosie wrote - When I use 'Hide inactive icons' in the system tray, I find
that after a reboot the icons I have hidden show again. What I am looking
for then is a utility that will allow me to permanently hide or show icons
as I want

This isn't a 'utility' but a 'tweak'

Maybe, but I want a simple utility (and there are a lot around) where I
can hide or show system tray icons and my selections _stay_ selected.
I thought the links you gave me were very helpful, but far to fiddly for
what I wanted. Indeed, having installed the Taskbar repair Tool Plus I
find there is no way to remove it.
Thanks anyway RoseW for taking the time to give me the links, but no
thanks!

 

[Tatva]

On Fri, 1 Apr 2005 10:18:46 +0100, in alt.comp.freeware you wrote:

Take a look at --

http://www.thewonderfulicon.com/

HTH

 

[Rosie]

I

Maybe, but I want a simple utility (and there are a lot around) where I
can hide or show system tray icons and my selections _stay_ selected.
I thought the links you gave me were very helpful, but far to fiddly
for what I wanted. Indeed, having installed the Taskbar repair Tool
Plus I find there is no way to remove it.
Thanks anyway RoseW for taking the time to give me the links, but no
thanks!

Latest. I now find that after installing Taskbar Repair Tool Plus
shown in the reference below, any new program I instal isn't allowed to
add an icon to the taskbar. I can see an icon just for a moment than it
disappears. It has even taken my 2 'flashing monitors' away so I can't
see if I'm on-line or not now. How the heck do I undo this program? I
can't remove it, I can't see where its gone, I can't do a System Restore
as that didn't work (I think it does now).
Help please.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

When I use 'Hide inactive icons' in the system tray, I find that after a
reboot the icons I have hidden show again. What I am looking for then is
a utility that will allow me to permanently hide or show icons as I
want. I tried Tray Factory but that was no better. Can anyone recommend
something please?

Do you just check the "Hide inactive icons" from the Taskbar
properties dialog? If so, you also need to click the customise button
and set the properties for each icon.

By default, these are all set to "Hide when inactive", so after a boot
they will all show again until a set timeout period passes. If you
really don't want to ever see them, you need to set each icon's
property to "Always hide" (you can still get at them via the "<<" icon
in the tray.

If they still show up after a reboot, it's possible that the registry
entries for these settings have become messed up. Mine did that and a
bit of research found a Microsoft article on how to clear the entries
and start again:

<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q283084>

 

[Rosie]

Do you just check the "Hide inactive icons" from the Taskbar
properties dialog? If so, you also need to click the customise button
and set the properties for each icon.

Yes, that was what I was doing.

By default, these are all set to "Hide when inactive", so after a boot
they will all show again until a set timeout period passes. If you
really don't want to ever see them, you need to set each icon's
property to "Always hide" (you can still get at them via the "<<" icon
in the tray.

Some I wanted to hide permanently, and some I want to show permanently
but every time I got them how I wanted them and rebooted, they were all
over the place again.

If they still show up after a reboot, it's possible that the registry
entries for these settings have become messed up. Mine did that and a
bit of research found a Microsoft article on how to clear the entries
and start again:

<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q283084>

Now that is very useful, as I also had about 7 icons that belonged to
programs I had removed previously. your tip has now removed them. Thanks
very much for that.
There does seem to be a problem with XP regarding tray icons, I notice a
lot of posts in forums about this and I've seen articles on the MS site
saying there is a problem.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

[snip]
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q283084>

Now that is very useful, as I also had about 7 icons that belonged to
programs I had removed previously. your tip has now removed them. Thanks
very much for that.

I had it much worse - more than 30 entries, many of which were never
in the tray. Several had folder icons, while quite a few had icons
belonging to other applications.

There does seem to be a problem with XP regarding tray icons, I notice a
lot of posts in forums about this and I've seen articles on the MS site
saying there is a problem.

And Microsoft is doing nothing about it beyond suggesting a registry
hack that many users would be terrified to risk. That knowledge base
article is dated 11 June 2002, so they've had plenty of time to fix
it.

 

[Rosie]

[snip]
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q283084>

Now that is very useful, as I also had about 7 icons that belonged to
programs I had removed previously. your tip has now removed them. Thanks
very much for that.

I had it much worse - more than 30 entries, many of which were never
in the tray. Several had folder icons, while quite a few had icons
belonging to other applications.

There does seem to be a problem with XP regarding tray icons, I notice a
lot of posts in forums about this and I've seen articles on the MS site
saying there is a problem.

And Microsoft is doing nothing about it beyond suggesting a registry
hack that many users would be terrified to risk. That knowledge base
article is dated 11 June 2002, so they've had plenty of time to fix
it.

They had the opportunity with SP2. Either they can't be bothered or they
don't know how. Surely they could write a script that became an update
to be download with all the other interminable list of updates?