Turn Off Solve PC Issues Notifications In Windows 7

If you run Microsoft’s latest operating system Windows 7 you probably have noticed a white flag in the system tray that notifies about PC issues that the operating system has identified. This ranges from asking the user to setup a backup software over issues where no firewall or security software has been detected and requests to scan the computer system with Windows Defender. While they might point out some issues that the PC has they are usually to general to be of help.

There are thankfully a few options on how to deal with those issues. Probably the easiest is to change the visibility of the Solve PC Issues icon so that the notifications are not displayed anymore in the Windows system tray.

This can be done the following way:

• A click on the white arrow will open all visible notifications in the system tray. Selecting the Customize option displays the known icons and their visibility.
• Locate the Action Center entry and change it from “Show icon and notifications” to “hide icon and notifications”.
• This hides the Solve PC Issues icon so that it is not displayed on the computer desktop.

The second option is to open the Action Center after left-clicking on the white flag that is showing the notifications. This opens the Action Center control panel. It is possible to disable some – but not all – of the notifications in here.

It is for instance possible to turn off notifications about Windows Backup but not about Windows Defender needing to scan the computer system.

The final option is to disable Windows Error Reporting in the Registry. This disables error reporting which has consequences on other features like the ability to create Windows crash dumps as well. It is usually not a good idea to disable error reporting.

Users who still want to go ahead need to launch the Windows Registry by pressing [Ctrl R], typing [regedit] and tapping on [enter]. They then need to navigate to the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting and double-click on the Disable parameter to change its value from 0 to 1. This disables Error Reporting in Windows 7. If the key is not there it can be created by right-clicking in the right window and selecting to create a new Dword that needs to be named Disabled.

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Sunday March 28, 2010 -
Tags:troubleshoot windows, windows 7, windows 7 tips

Responses so far:

1. Ben says:

   March 28, 2010 at 6:09 pm

   Wouldn’t this be easier just by:
   1. Right-click on the taskbar, click Properties
   2. Click Customize under Notification Area
   3. Click Turn system icons on or off
   4. Turn off Action Center

   Reply
   • Jeff says:

     January 10, 2011 at 6:19 pm

     Thanks Ben – this is the best solution I’ve seen so far.

     Reply
2. tuna says:

   March 30, 2010 at 8:05 pm

   Luckily there are a few ways to be rid of this annoyance. Typical Windows, 3 ways to skin a cat. Which isn’t a bad thing.

   Since I skipped Vista, and have not given up on 7(yet), my next question is: How do I disable/remove the convoluted mess that is Network & Sharing Center?

   Reply
3. Duh Uh says:

   January 16, 2011 at 2:35 pm

   Doesn’t work on Win 7 home premium

   Reply
4. Duh Uh says:

   January 16, 2011 at 2:36 pm

   None of these work on Win 7 home premium…

   Reply