The following guide walks you through the process of turning off Windows 10 Live Tiles permanently.
I have no use for Live Tiles and explained my reasoning previously here on Ghacks. First, I don't really use many applications as I prefer desktop programs over them for a variety of reasons.
But even for applications that I use, I find live tiles to be a hindrance if not an annoyance rather than something that is beneficial.
I can see them work well on mobile devices but not so much on the desktop.
This might change for the better with the introduction of interactive live tiles, a feature first showcased in 2014 but never heard of again afterwards.
It is easy enough to turn off the live tile feature for individual applications. Simply right-click on the tile in the Windows start menu, and select More > Turn live tile off to do so.
But that takes only care of that single tile and not all of them. If you have no use for them, you may want to consider turning the feature off completely instead so that newly installed applications won't make use of the feature.
You have two main options to turn off Live Tiles completely in Windows 10. You can use the Group Policy Editor and configure a policy for individual user accounts, or use the Windows Registry instead.
The Group Policy is not available for all editions of Windows 10. Basically, if you run a Home version, Group Policy Editor is not accessible by default and you need to use the Registry hack below to turn off live tiles.
For those with Group Policy, the process looks like this:
While you are at it, you may want to consider disabling other notification options such as toast notifications or notification mirroring there as well.
You can set the preference in the Windows Registry as well.
Please note that items may still be cached even though push notifications are disabled.
Closing Words
The policy seems to take effect immediately, while the Registry key does not even after a restart. Anyway, both should be useful if you find no use in the Live Tile feature of Windows 10.
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Ghacks is a technology news blog that was founded in 2005 by Martin Brinkmann. It has since then become one of the most popular tech news sites on the Internet with five authors and regular contributions from freelance writers.
I use live tiles only for weather, but often it does not update.
so tell me how to fix this Microsoft?
Sorry, but I just can’t resist any longer, but of and off are not interchangeable, (two different meanings).
Sorry for that, corrected ;)
Thanks for the registry/gpedit tweak. Nice find man!
PS:
Shit happens ;) …
PPS:
Good that we got more pictures here too. I always like that. :)
I’m testing the new theme right now on the live site, and more screenshots look really really nice ;)
are the apps off (like weather), or are the notifications off so that the tile doesn’t update? I would think that is an important distinction to make.
For me, they aren’t too useful, but I don’t mind them. I prefer to just remove them from the start menu if not needed. Then I know that they aren’t running at all.
Hi Martin,
Is there a way to just set the default for Live Tiles to Off (either for all users (HKLM) or individual users (HKCU)), still show the App name (Badge?) and still allow individual tiles to be turned On as needed? Or is setting it manually for each Tile currently the only other alternative?
I think the registry key in your directions has a typo since it doesn’t match the screenshot. I was able to find the key shown in the screenshot, but not the key noted in the text.
Text currently shows:
Navigate to the following location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PushNotifications
Shouldn’t it be the same as the screenshot?:
Navigate to the following location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PushNotifications
Thanks!
Hi, you are right about the typo, I have corrected it. I’m not aware of another solution.
how do i disable all the tiles not just the live ones via reg not gpedit. I have win 10 home and it doesn’t have the group policy editor. Let me know if there’s a way !
Next problem: default tile size.
I want to get rid of the tiles completely, for all users. How do you do this?