How to disable Windows XP/Vista System Tray

Are you the type of person that don’t use the applications located on the system tray? Some people never use the applications hanging on their system tray but most people like me use it a lot. I don’t want applications to clutter my taskbar so I let them resides on my system tray. But if you don’t find the system tray useful or if your system tray is disabled and you don’t know why, you can follow this simple registry hack to disable or bring back your disabled system tray. as a safety precaution Backup your registry first.

• Open your Registry Editor

• Locate the key below

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

• Create a new 32-bit DWORD value in the right hand pane and enter these values:

You will have to logoff and back on for this to take effect. To remove the hack, just delete the key, or change the value to 0.

Note that disabling the system tray doesn’t actually prevent system tray apps from running, it just hides them. You should still disable any applications that aren’t needed.

Update: Note that the same registry key may exist in more than one location, so if you are trying to reverse this hack, you should search the registry for NoTrayItemsDisplay.