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![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Why does Microsoft insist on giving us useless features that we cant disable without going through x hours of troubleshooting and re-programming? The current thing for me is the annoying Show Windows Desktop Button in Win 7 thats attached to the start bar and serves no practical function other than to look tacky.
For those of you who don't know this already, the same function can be achieved by pressing the windows key+d.
Personally, I find this feature to be inconvenient even for novice users due to its inconvenient location in the bottom right corner; essentially as far away from the start button as physically possible.
I'm a rather advanced user and I decided to switch back to Window$ from Ubuntu after 7 came out because of the performance improvement and support for adobe cs4. (though thats another story entirely)
I suppose the question I have is where can this little 'feature' be found in the registry so I can remove it? (or if there is an easier way to remove it i'd be interested in that as well, though Im nearly certain it doesn't exist)
Also as a side note to Microsoft: Perhaps an update to make this icon movable and removable via gui would be nice, seeing as how im sure several other people do not like it and have less experience than I do in programming and customization.
Edit: Im not interested in 'disabling' the active feature of it, I want to remove it entirely.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Hello,
Unfortunately, this is by design. However, there are 3rd party applications that would definitely accomplish the task at hand for you. I apologize for any inconvenience.
Thank you,
Aaron
Microsoft Answers Support Engineer
Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think
Simplest little tool worked. Just bump this.
this is getting very disturbing in windows 10 when using in a tablet pc. when handwriting it keeps being pressed. please allow us to disable it without Thirty party unsafe applications
Yeah, so this thread is ancient, but Micorsoft... is still in 2015 foisting these ridiculos things on the user, forcing an agenda that only they understand.
It should never be the case that a user should need search out third party applications or otherwise edit the registry, etc... just to make a minor but important change the GUI that should have always been mutable.
Microsoft never really got over people trying to customize the interface, thus implying that Microsoft’s design was not perfect from the start. They have never liked customization and have always ignored it at best, and actively prevented it at worst.
There is no logical reason for the "show dekstop" icon to be made permanent in the tray space.
If there is, someone should explain it to us all.
Well, you could always just press Win+D to show the desktop, so… uh… oops, I just did the opposite. ⊙_ʘ
I don't use it. Never have. I don't need it and it's taking up rather valuable space in the tray.
It does have some practical use, like dragging files to the desktop, but then you could do the same thing in XP by dragging a file to an empty spot (ANY empty spot, even a couple of pixels wide) on the Tashbar, without requiring the Show Desktop icon.
I 'm still running XP on one or two machines... It's the friggin' best ever. I have a laptop with 8.1 which just blows. I have this Win7 box that works but is aggravating, all thanks to the GUI and let me tell you. I have absolutely ZERO faith in Windows 10 being any less of a pain than any of the rest of these.
I use XP on my home desktop. There are some limitations, but it is decidedly snappier than my Windows 7 laptop, mostly due to Windows 7’s sluggish Explorer. Windows 10 is based on Windows 8.1 like Windows 7 was based on Windows Vista, so expect a similar “improvement” and customer/critic reaction. ◔_◔
That these UX/UI designers think that what they've done over time with the inteface is an improvement is laughable in the extreme. It's horrible... It's a joke, but it's not funny.
It's like someone has infiltrated MS and is purposefully sabotaging things in an attempt to run people off.
I know what you mean. Google is the same, except 238% worse. Microsoft has always been notorious for making undesirable changes and ignoring user feedback, but Google has perfected that despicable behavior.
Google clearly has no UX/UI people (or the worst, least educated, least experienced ones in the world). Microsoft can at least claim to have some half-way decent ones.
Google keeps making horrible decisions, doing horrible things, and ruining perfectly good products, and makes a point to ignore user outrage no matter how large and vocal it is. They are extremely fascist and do whatever the hell they want (for some unfathomable reason) and tell users to like it. They also “protect users from themselves” by locking things down and preventing users from doing anything because they worry that some noob idiot somewhere might somehow figure out how to do something advanced that requires modifying default settings and mess things up for themselves.
At least Microsoft has always provided an API and encouraged some level of development and claims to have seen the light and made a change to get user feedback and actually listen to it for Windows 10 in (what to them at least is) an unprecedented way.
Microsoft sucks, but Google sucks 476% more (percent suckage is double worsage percent).
Well, I liked it when it was an ICON that I could put anywhere I wanted along the bottom IF I wanted it. Also, I never use it in Win 7 since it's all the way in the corner out of the way. When I had XP and Vista I put it near my other icons/shortcuts.
I really enjoyed the layout of Vista and XP - I hated Vista for it's copy bug, and memory issues but the layout was quite nice. Flexible, shortcuts, clean.
I love Win 7 except for the Show Desktop button in the bottom right (what a stupid place for it) and the UI bug where folders drop down to the bottom as I complained about in another post.
As I have always said... by this stage of the game we should be able to choose our UI and customize it anyway we like and LOCK it in place.
