Guide | How To Delete old icons in tray area (notification area)

[Plexx]

Have too many icons that have been used in your tray area (notification area in the task bar) and they are no longer installed in your system? Time to do some spring cleaning.

For this, you will need to open the Task Manager and Regedit (simply type regedit on the start menu search box).

Once both windows are open, navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify but do not do anything!

Next, under the task manager, end process of explorer.exe (Do not close the Task Manager).

Once you have no task bar nor any icons on the desktop, delete IconsStreams and PastIconsStreams keys (simply right click and delete).

Now on Task Manager, simply click on the Users tab, click on Logoff and then on the windows screen bottom right button click on Restart.

Icons are now fully deleted (past icons).

Once you are back on windows, have a look for yourself.

 

[illumination]

You can do the same thing with Ccleaner also.
In the Cleaner section/windows tab scroll down to "advanced" and click "Tray Notifications Cache". Then click Run Cleaner, after you have done so and close Ccleaner, you have to manually restart Explorer.exe in the task manager, and you can do so, by opening the task manager, click Explorer.exe then end process, go back up to file, click it, click "new task", enter Exploer.exe and it will restart.

 

[McLovin]

Won't uninstalling them delete it from the system tray?

 

[Plexx]

You can do the same thing with Ccleaner also.
In the Cleaner section/windows tab scroll down to "advanced" and click "Tray Notifications Cache". Then click Run Cleaner, after you have done so and close Ccleaner, you have to manually restart Explorer.exe in the task manager, and you can do so, by opening the task manager, click Explorer.exe then end process, go back up to file, click it, click "new task", enter Exploer.exe and it will restart.

Thanks wolf. Didn't really explore CCleaner that much to notice that option. I do in the past remember downloading a tool and didnt really work so decided to do it the old school way which is regedit. If only I wasn't rusty I could create a batch script to do all the steps and then restart explorer.exe so its easier to reboot the system.

Won't uninstalling them delete it from the system tray?

when you uninstall the program they no longer reside in the system tray but if you check under the Customize option, you will see past icons.

When you reboot and re-configure how you want your icons in the tray, if you look at the registry, the 2 deleted keys are recreated.

 

[McLovin]

when you uninstall the program they no longer reside in the system tray but if you check under the Customize option, you will see past icons.

When you reboot and re-configure how you want your icons in the tray, if you look at the registry, the 2 deleted keys are recreated.

Ahh, I see. Well thanks for the guide will be doing this next time I uninstall some software

 

[illumination]

Thanks wolf. Didn't really explore CCleaner that much to notice that option. I do in the past remember downloading a tool and didnt really work so decided to do it the old school way which is regedit. If only I wasn't rusty I could create a batch script to do all the steps and then restart explorer.exe so its easier to reboot the system.

Your welcome.. I used to use the reg edit to do this before, and find Ccleaner does an excellent job as well.