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    Turn off sidebar systray icon?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by sac02, Dec 19, 2007.

  1. sac02

    sac02 Notebook Geek

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    Can the system tray icon for windows sidebar be turned off without turning off the sidebar feature itself? I like the sidebar and gadgets, but would rather not have the icon down there cluttering things up; I don't need an icon to tell me the feature is enabled, I can see that by looking at my desktop!

    Mac
     
    sac02, Dec 19, 2007
    #1
  2. morphy

    morphy Notebook Deity

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    Doesn't hidden inactive icons take care of that?
     
    morphy, Dec 20, 2007
    #2
  3. coolguy

    coolguy Notebook Prophet

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    It can't be done.
     
    coolguy, Dec 20, 2007
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  4. AKAJohnDoe

    AKAJohnDoe Mime with Tourette's

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    No. But you can drag the gadgets onto the desktop and then close the sidebar itself. You'll still have gadgets in the desktop, and the icon in the SysTray, but that annoying shadow on the desktop will go away.
     
    AKAJohnDoe, Dec 20, 2007
    #4
  5. ATR90

    ATR90 Notebook Evangelist

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    Just hide it when inactive.
     
    ATR90, Dec 21, 2007
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  6. eyecon82

    eyecon82 Notebook Deity

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    who cares..it only takes a few mm^2 of your screen space

    and no it cannot be done
     
    eyecon82, Dec 21, 2007
    #6
  7. orev

    orev Notebook Virtuoso

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    Obviously he cares about it.
     
    orev, Dec 21, 2007
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  8. eyecon82

    eyecon82 Notebook Deity

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    i know..but i was telling him he shouldn't care. not worth being so picky over certain things
     
    eyecon82, Dec 21, 2007
    #8
  9. ATR90

    ATR90 Notebook Evangelist

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    May be worth it to him.

    So for anyone who doesn't want to see the Windows Sidebar icon in the taskbar, right click anywhere on the taskbar, select Properties, Notification Area, then click Customize and make sure "Windows Sidebar" is listed as "Hide".
     
    ATR90, Dec 21, 2007
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  10. morphy

    morphy Notebook Deity

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    My sidebar icon is hidden right now as I type so dunno what everyone is talking about. I have to explicitly unhide to make it appear again.
     
    morphy, Dec 21, 2007
    #10
  11. ATR90

    ATR90 Notebook Evangelist

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    Same here...

    I'm thinking his is not listed as hidden. I don't remember if it's hidden by default.
     
    ATR90, Dec 22, 2007
    #11
  12. AKAJohnDoe

    AKAJohnDoe Mime with Tourette's

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    I don't like that little arrow that tells me I have hidden icons; sort of defeats the purpose of hiding them, doesn't it?
     
    AKAJohnDoe, Dec 22, 2007
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  13. ATR90

    ATR90 Notebook Evangelist

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    Not really; sometimes you want to make sure all your programs are running correctly in the background so an easy way to check is just click that arrow. I guess the only way the arrow would look dumb is if you hide ALL your icons, including the system ones.
     
    ATR90, Dec 24, 2007
    #13
  14. Phair

    Phair Newbie

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    There is a way to get this but will disable all others tray icons, such MSN Messenger and Steam.

    1. Open the Start Menu.
    2. In the white line (Start Search) area, type gpedit.mscand press Enter.
    3. Click Continue for the UAC prompt.
    4. In the left pane, click on User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Start Menu and Taskbar. (See screenshot below)
    5. In the right pane, right click on Hide the notification area and click Properties.
    6) Dot Enabled and click OK.

    There is also the possibility to rehack the sidebar.exe and delete systray icon resource. You will get off only sidebar icon. To do this, first get all executable privilegies with your user than reshack and save as sidebar.mod, then rename original sidebar.exe to sidebar.bak and rename sidebar.mod to sidebar.exe

    Works fine here. I have LOTs of Vista system executables rehacked and this not block the Windows Update action.
     
    Phair, Apr 21, 2008
    #14