Delete old programs in the Notifications Area

Does anyone know how to completely delete old programs in the Notifications Area of the Windows XP Taskbar? Mine is pretty clogged; it seems that any program I’ve tried out, then discarded, gets an icon on the Notifications Area. How do I prevent new programs or icons from appearing there?


Thanks,
H.

 

Probably still an entry in msconfig on the startup tab. You could just uncheck the entries, preventing them from starting, or delete them via regedit.

HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\run, run-, runonce, etc.

Possibly some in same location under HKEY_Current_User.

Look for the program entries in the right pane, right click each and delete.

 

How to Clear Past Items from the Notification Area

 

This script will do all the things that Zander's article suggests automatically:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/xp_pastitems.vbs

 

Thanks guys, you really helped me with that annoying problem. Noahdfear and Zander were perfectly right about finding the keys to it in the registry, that might have taken a while for me to complete the modifications but Abraxas
- WOW - what an amazing piece of script! It removed those registry entries in literally the blink of an eye!

As I say - again - thanks guys, I’ve learned a bit more about Windows XP and "˜computing’.

H.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

Now if we can figure out why some people get a scruipt error and why the manual solution doesn't seem to work for some, we'll be making headway.

I suspect it has to do with SP1. Tray icons disappeared with annoying regularity before SP1, so I suspect they are handled differently somehow after SP1.

 

Vbs files

i thought any file are program that ends with a vbs was a virus
could some one correct me please. and that site that Abraxas sent ends with Vbs
tony
tonydto@troycable.net

 

Very few of the millions of scripts in existence are viruses. VBS got this unfounded reputation due to the actions of many so-called "script kiddies" who, because VBS is not too difficult to learn, used VBS in constructing their first malicious code.

VBS is a very useful language and makes the web experience more interesting.

More here:

http://www.devguru.com/Technologies/vbscript/quickref/vbscript_intro.html

One of the nice things about these scripts is that they can be opened in Notepad. Even if you are unfamiliar with the language, you can usually tell if they are up to no good.

 

thank you

thank you
Abraxas that answered alot of questions i had on vbs thank you
i just want to watch what i put on my system
thank you
tony