Remove icons from the system tray

Helpline Q&A Directory

Several programs I have installed, such as my scanner and CD creator software, place an icon in the System Tray next to the clock as well as placing shortcuts on the desktop.

I want to find a way of removing these icons from the System Tray because they slow the bootup process and I am content with starting the applications from the desktop. Can you explain how to remove these unwanted icons from the System Tray?

System Tray icons represent programs that run all the time while Windows is running, and are usually the only visible interface to those programs. Without them you could not configure the background program or shut it down.

It isn't the icon loading into the System Tray that causes bootup to be slow, but the background program itself loading and initialising. If you want to get rid of the Tray icon, you will have to manage without the program that it's connected to as well.

We don't know why a scanner or your CD creator software needs a background task to be running even when you aren't using it, but the software developers may have had a good reason for it. There's therefore a risk involved in trying to disable these programs unless a proper option is provided for doing so.

Look in the configuration options for each program and see whether there is an option called something like 'Load program at startup'. If there is, try disabling it.

If there isn't such a program running, there is another way of getting round your problem, but it's risky. Open the Start menu and look in the StartUp folder.

If you see an entry there for one of the programs you'd prefer not to load, drag it to the desktop. This gets it out of the way and stops it being loaded at startup. You could simply delete the offending icon but, if you do that and then find that this has caused a problem, you won't be able to restore it easily.