Too many Taskbar Icons

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Guest

I have too many icons on my taskbar (next to the time, in lower RHS), 1/2 of
them I do not need to be there/be active [I am sure it is slowing down the
machine]. How do I remove them, and open them when I need to? Free software
app, or.....?

Thnx, Stew (a newbie)
 
Each of the icons in the system notification area ('the tray') is an
interface for a program that is running on your computer.

Some programs will let you choose whether or not an icon appears in the
tray. But whether or not the icon appears, the program is still running.

Review the programs that start with Windows and decide which of them you
don't want to start with Windows. Then open the program's menus and
search for the setting where you choose whether or not the program
starts with Windows.
 
Realtorstew said:
I have too many icons on my taskbar (next to the time, in lower RHS),
1/2 of them I do not need to be there/be active [I am sure it is
slowing down the machine]. How do I remove them, and open them when I
need to? Free software app, or.....?
Click to expand...


Note that this area is not the Task Bar, but a specific part of it, called
the System Notification Area, or, less formally, the System Tray.
First, you should be concerned with *all* programs that start automatically.
Not all of them manifest themselves by an icon in the system tray.



On each program you don't want to start automatically, check its Options to
see if it has the choice not to start. Many can easily and best be stopped
that way. If that doesn't work, run MSCONFIG from the Start | Run line, and
on the Startup tab, uncheck the programs you don't want to start
automatically.

However, if I were you, I wouldn't do this just for the purpose of running
the minimum number of programs. Despite what many people tell you, you
should be concerned, not with how *many* of these programs you run, but
*which*. Some of them can hurt performance severely, but others have no
effect on performance.

Don't just stop programs from running willy-nilly. What you should do is
determine what each program is, what its value is to you, and what the cost
in performance is of its running all the time. You can get more information
about these with at http://castlecops.com/StartupList.html. If you can't
find it there, try google searches and ask about specifics here.

Once you have that information, you can make an intelligent informed
decision about what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of.
 
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