Disable taskbar tooltips in windows 7

I find they frequently get stuck open if you have a near-full-screen application open.

Is it possible to disable them?

RJFalconer

Posted 2011-02-10T13:38:34.543

Reputation: 9 791

Answers

Open "regedit" as adminstrator.

Navigate to:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]

Find "ShowInfoTip", right-click and select "Modify" and change the value to "0"

RJFalconer

Posted 2011-02-10T13:38:34.543

Reputation: 9 791

1something had re-enabled this undesirable feature (keeps covering things you want to click) – zzapper – 2015-07-30T15:37:48.407

2this is a life saver... I was thinking of going back to windows XP ;) – playcat – 2012-04-01T20:39:44.217

1This hides all tooltips, right? Not just those in the taskbar? If so, it's worth making that explicitly clear in your answer. – Cody Gray – 2012-05-29T13:33:08.150

2For some reason this does not work for me. I double-checked the key and value and they are as mentioned. If I leave my mouse over some pinned programs on the taskbar, the tooltip always show. I run Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, SP1. – Eric Fortier – 2012-08-23T19:31:19.467

2Didn't work for me, either, on Windows 7 pro x64. – bgmCoder – 2013-04-12T01:00:54.360

You might be experiencing this issue, described on Microsoft's Q/A forum:

Why does the tooltip display on taskbar icons when I am not hovering my cursor on them?

The suggestion there is to make sure your video drivers are up to date. For a momentary fix, you can try:

Holding Shift and right-clicking on a tile.
If that doesn't work, try killing dwm.exe.

Paul Lammertsma

Posted 2011-02-10T13:38:34.543

Reputation: 3 508

2So far, shift-right-click has been working for me. I prefer to do this every once in a while rather than completely disable the tooltips. – TTT – 2014-07-16T14:38:46.440

2This also works in Windows 8. – Konstantin Pereiaslov – 2014-09-30T14:35:07.933

Click Start>Run, type Gpedit.msc. Under User Configuration>Administrative Templates>Start Menu and Taskbar, enable 'Remove Balloon Tips on Start Menu items'

Andrew

Posted 2011-02-10T13:38:34.543

Reputation: 21

2Spoke too soon, sorry. This only hides some of the tool tips on the start menu, not all. Boo. – Andrew – 2017-05-28T23:20:21.420

Solved my problem – Tom Brito – 2018-12-05T22:56:15.080