How To Manage Action Center in Windows 7
In Windows 7 it can get annoying seeing the Action Center icon pop up notifications every time you turn on your computer. Today we will look at changing the messages that it displays and even completely disabling it.
New in Windows 7 is the Action Center which is an activity center that allows you to control system notifications. This is definitely an improvement to previous versions so you can control the amount of annoying messages the OS pops up from the taskbar. To get to Action Center select it from Control Panel or simply type "action center" (no quotes) into the search box in the Start Menu.
By default the Action Center notification icon will be displayed in the taskbar and display messages about security and maintenance settings.
While in Action Center you can view which settings are enabled or not and change them by clicking the different hyperlinks.
Click on Change Action Center settings to turn messages on or off.
If you are an experienced user and don't care to see the Action Center icon in the taskbar at all, here is how we disable it. Click on Start and go to Control Panel.
Now in Control Panel select All Control Panel Items and then click on System Icons.
The Turn system icons on or off window will open and here you change Action Center to Off. Notice you can also turn other system icons on or off as well.
Also if you click on Customize notification icons in the screen above you can select the behavior of other tray notifications individually.
If you are new to computers to Windows 7 you might not want to disable the Action Center entirely until you get a better feel for it. With these tips you can definitely control the amount of notifications that pop up.
What theme are you using? my show hidden icons looks different than yours
Another way to do this — > Right Click on Empty space on the System Tray —Click properties — Same screen to turn off / on the icons
I bet most of your readers who have downloaded Windows 7 and are loving it would appreciate regular articles on Windows 7!!!
HOW ABOUT IT!!!!!
Mr. Geek,
I agree with John Campbell….I have Windows 7 and I AM loving it!
I keep looking if you put a "Windows 7″ link on your main (Home) page along with Vista, XP, Office, Firefox, Geek Stuff, Ubuntu / Linux, How-To Geek Blogs for all our Windows 7 needs.
I think they changed it in Windows 7 RC…it is now under "Appearance and Personalization"
@vending carts:
You're right they did move it but found it at the following path:
Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Notification Area Icons\System Icons
There is a much easier way to disable the icon. just right click the taskbar in the tray area and click "customize notification icons" or click your little up arrow and click customize.
Hatakare is right, though it's hard to find a space where you're not right-clicking on one of the icons there
In the Windows 7 RC, "System Icons" is already named "Notification and Area Icons."
Well, this disables the notifications. How do you completely disable the action center from running?
Or you can just click start and type "system icons" and hit enter to get to the same screen
Great tweak geek, thanks.
Looks easy but hard to send the mind there!
just click the customize icon, then down the bottom on the left is the turn on/off icons
Is there anyway to do this via the registry?
is there anyway to automate this? because the settings reset after sysprep and ive tryed through the registry but those dont work either even after i export it and run them manually, and restart
@ Jack:
Been working on this for weeks. looks like Microsoft has the brain power to build an OS, but not to think through a general image building process, when half the settings get erased and restored back to "Microsofts Suggested Settings", including the Notification Area. Im pissed at the time I have spent here and would go to another company if there was any in the game.
how it can be done with a register key???