Hacking Your Way Through the Interface
Use Registry hacks to make a grab-bag of great interface changes.
Hidden in the mazes of the Registry are countless ways to hack XP’s interface. Here are some of my favorites.
Hide All Icons in the Notification Area
The System Tray, also called the Notification Area, is the small area on the far-right side of the Taskbar, in which utilities and programs that run in the background, such as antivirus software, show their icons.
I don’t find it a particularly intelligent use of
screen real estate, so I’d prefer not to see the
icons there. To hide them, run the Registry Editor [Hack #68] and go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer.
Among other things, this key controls the display of objects
throughout XP. Create a new DWORD called
NoTrayItemsDisplay. Assign it a value of
1. (A value of 0 will keep the
icons displayed.) Exit the Registry and reboot.
While you’re at the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer
key, you can also delete the My Recent Documents icon on the Start
menu. Create a new DWORD called
NoRecentDocsMenu. Assign it a value of
1. (A value of 0 will keep the
icon displayed.) Exit the Registry and reboot.
Hide Only Certain Icons in the Notification Area
You might like to display some icons in the notification area but hide others. If so, you can hide icons on a case-by-case basis. You’ll do it by delving through menus, though, not by hacking the Registry. ...
Get Windows XP Hacks now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
