Remove Old Notification Icons In Windows
The following guide walks you through the steps of removing old unused notification icons from Windows 7 and newer versions of the Windows operating system.
If you have used Windows 7 or newer versions of Windows for some time, you may notice eventually that some of the notification icons are from programs and applications that are no longer installed on your computer system.
The customize dialog enables you to select if icons are displayed in the system tray area of the operating system, and which are hidden by default (so that you need to click on the up-arrow icon to display them).
Neither the software program nor the Windows operating system remove notification icons from the operating system automatically when a program is uninstalled.
Remove Old Notification Icons In Windows
While this does not disturb operations, as the dead icons are not displayed to you in the system tray area of the system, it has other consequences.
Old notifications can be a issue because of two reasons: the customize dialog will grow over time with new notification icons added but none removed. It will take longer to customize the system tray icons because of this as you find dead weight in it so that it may take longer to find the notification icons that are still linked to apps installed on Windows.
The second is privacy as the icons will reveal information about programs that have been used on the computer system in the past.
You can open the customize window in Windows with a click on the up arrow in the system tray area and selecting customize from the context menu. You will notice that you can show or hide icons or notifications there, but that there is no option to remove old icons from the menu.
Update: If you are using Windows 8 or 10, you need to right-click on the System Tray area, select Properties from the menu that opens up, and then on customize next to "Notification area" to open that menu.
Removing old Windows notification icons
All icons are cached in the Windows Registry. The easiest way to remove the past notification icons - without software - is therefore to delete the Registry keys that contain the cache.
Here is how you can remove old notification icons from the Windows system tray.
- Press [Windows R], type [regedit] and hit [enter].
- Confirm the UAC prompt if it is displayed.
- Navigate to the Registry key HKCU \Software \Classes \LocalSettings \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \TrayNotify
- Make a backup of the Registry key by right-clicking on TrayNotify and selecting Export.
- Now delete the following two Registry keys: IconStreams and PastIconsStream
- Open the Windows Task Manager with [Ctrl Shift Esc]
- Terminate the explorer.exe process
- Click on File > New Task Run and enter explorer.exe to reload the explorer process
This removes all icons that are currently not in use from the system tray. Basically, what it does remove all cached items. Notification icons that are still used are cached again, while all old ones are gone for good. Users who prefer a software solution can try Tray Cleaner instead.
Just run the program on your system and click on the clean button when it pops up. This deletes all icons from the notification area that are associated with programs that are no longer installed on the system.
What mental age of reader are you targeting with the first sentence? 10?
Why not write an article on how to *avoid* upgrading from W10 to W11. Analogous to those like me who avoided upgrading from 7 to 10 for as long as possible.
If your paymaster Microsoft permits it, of course.
5. Rufus
6. Ventoy
PS. I hate reading these “SEO optimized” articles.
I used Rufus to create an installer for a 6th gen intel i5 that had MBR. It upgraded using Setup. No issues except for Win 11 always prompting me to replace my local account. Still using Win 10 Pro on all my other PCs to avoid the bullying.
bit pointless to upgrade for the sake of upgrading as you never know when you’ll get locked out because ms might suddenly not provide updates to unsupported systems.
ps…. time travelling?
written. Jan 15, 2023
Updated • Jan 13, 2023
This happens when you schedule a post in WordPress and update it before setting the publication date.
Anyone willing to downgrade to this awful OS must like inflicting themselves with harm.
I have become convinced now that anybody who has no qualms with using Windows 11/10 must fit into one of the following brackets:
1) Too young to remember a time before W10 and W11 (doesn’t know better)
2) Wants to play the latest games on their PC above anything else (or deeply needs some software which already dropped W7 support)
3) Doesn’t know too much about how computers work, worried that they’d be absolutely lost and in trouble without the “”latest security””
4) Microsoft apologist that tries to justify that the latest “features” and “changes” are actually a good thing, that improve Windows
5) Uses their computer to do a bare minimum of like 3 different things, browse web, check emails, etc, so really doesn’t fuss
Obviously that doesn’t cover everyone, there’s also the category that:
6) Actually liked W7 more than 10, and held out as long as possible before switching, begrudgingly uses 10 now
Have I missed any group off this list?
You have missed in this group just about any professional user that uses business software like CAD programs or ERP Programs which are 99% of all professional users from this list.
Linux doesn’t help anyone who is not a linux kid and apple is just a fancy facebook machine.
Microsoft has removed KB5029351 update
only from windows update though
KB5029351 is still available from the ms update catalog site
1. This update is labaled as PREVIEW if it causes issues to unintelligent people, then they shouldn’t have allowed Preview updates ot install.
2. I have installed it in a 11 years old computer, and no problems at all.
3. Making a big drama over a bluescreen for an updated labeled as preview is ridiculous.
This is probably another BS internet drama where people ran programs and scripts that modified the registry until they broke Windows, just for removing stuff that they weren’t even using just for the sake of it.
Maybe people should stop playing geeks and actually either use Windows 10 or Windows 11, but don’t try to modify things just for the sake of it.
Sometimes removing or stopping things (like defender is a perfect example) only need intelligence, not scripts or 3rd party programs that might mess with windows.
Windows 11 was a pointless release, it was just created because some of the Windows team wanted to boost sales with some sort of new and improved Windows 10. Instead, Microsoft cannot support one version well let alone two.
Windows 11 is the worst ugly shame by Microsoft ever. They should release with every new W11 version a complete free version of Starallback inside just to make this sh** OS functionally again.
motherboard maker MSI has recently released a statement regarding the “unsupported processor” blue screen error for their boards using Intel 600/700 series chipsets & to avoid the KB5029351 Win11 update:
https://www.msi.com/news/detail/MSI-On–UNSUPPORTED-PROCESSOR–Error-Message-of-Windows-11-Update-KB5029351-Preview-142215
check out the following recent articles:
Neowin – Microsoft puts little blame on its Windows update after UNSUPPORTED PROCESSOR BSOD bug:
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-puts-little-blame-on-its-windows-update-after-unsupported-processor-bsod-bug/
BleepingComputer – Microsoft blames ‘unsupported processor’ blue screens on OEM vendors:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-blames-unsupported-processor-blue-screens-on-oem-vendors/
While there may be changes or updates to the Windows 10 Store for Business and Education in the future, it is premature to conclude that it will be discontinued based solely on rumors.
My advice, I left win 15 years ago. Now I’m a happy linux user (linuxmint) but there is Centos, Fedora, Ubuntu depending on your needs.
motherboard maker MSI has recently released new BIOS/firmware updates for their Intel 600 & 700 series motherboards to fix the “UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR” problem (Sept. 6):
https://www.msi.com/news/detail/Updated-BIOS-fixes-Error-Message–UNSUPPORTED-PROCESSOR–caused-BSOD-on-MSI-s-Intel-700-and-600-Series-Motherboards-142277
I try to disable the Diagnostics Tracking Service (Connected Devices Platform User Services) but it wont let me disable it, any help will be greatly appreciated.
Tank you for your help