Windows 7: Remove Show Desktop Button

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.

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.

I don't use it. Never have. I don't need it and it's taking up rather valuable space in the tray.

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.

Let's add to that the notification icons can't be configured. Yeah, I know... 12 fanboys just sat up in their chair to say that you can, but the options aren't really options.

There are three non-options in the list under the customise dialog window.... they are,  Show icon and notifications, Hide icons and notifications, and Only show notifications.

Each of which is totally useless... because the one we need is the one that isn't there... "Show icon only".

What I want is quick access to the background applications that run in the tray so that I can configure them... like my mouse controls, video card options, buttons for my game controllers etc...

The one thing I want to do, is the one thing that for no obvious reason, Microsoft decided to exclude. Why ?

I don't get it.

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.

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.

If you want to complain to Microsoft about something, please contact

them directly. Trying to do it here is just a waste of (figurative)

breath.

And how would you suggest we do that? The closest thing to a feedback channel that Microsoft has is Connect which does not even list Windows as one of the products for which feedback can be left. Not everybody can be special enough to be selected as a beta-tester and have their opinions listened to (not that Microsoft has much of a track record for actually listening to user feedback, they are almost as bad as Google for ignoring what users say… almost; Google is still the grand-champion supreme of ignoring user feedback and telling us what we should want because they know so much better what we want than we do).

Ken knows full well that his post here won’t have any influence over the design of Windows, he is merely expressing his opinion and frustration, and providing what information he has on the subject for others who feel the same to commiserate and learn from.

If like you said, posting here won’t have any benefit, then it certainly can’t hurt either.

On Sat, 19 Jul 2014 20:40:41 +0000, PerryCS wrote:

At this stage in the game the ENTIRE UI should be completely customizable.  1995 to Present and we still have a rigid UI that requires extensive programming to modify.

I agree to a great extent, but not quite as strongly as you say.

You have some of the BEST programmers in the world. 

This isn't Microsoft you're addressing; this is a peer support forum.
We are all just users of this version of Windows here, helping each
other if and when we can. We are not Microsoft employees (not even
those of us with "Microsoft MVP" behind our names; that's an honorary
title for having provided consistently helpful advice) except for an
occasional Microsoft contractor or employee.

If you want to complain to Microsoft about something, please contact
them directly. Trying to do it here is just a waste of (figurative)
breath.

At this stage in the game the ENTIRE UI should be completely customizable.  1995 to Present and we still have a rigid UI that requires extensive programming to modify.

If I agreed any harder, I would injure myself.

Microsoft has known full-well for at least a couple of decades that people want UI customization. They have continually seen third-parties provide all sorts of customization capabilities s for every aspect of the UI, yet, they obstinately refuse to provide any such ability either built-in, or even as an API-supported framework for others to do it themselves, hence all the .dll hacks that are necessary, but absolutely should not be. Having to resort to hacking the OS to do something so common and so innocuous is ridiculous. Not only is it a lot more work, not only does it require constant attention to check and restore after updates, but it also opens the system up to new attack vectors unnecessarily.

I just cannot imagine why Microsoft refuses to support UI customization beyond what little wiggle-room they have allowed with a bit of color changing, wallpapers, or using Microsoft-provided themes. The only fathomable (attempt at an) excuse for continuing with this absurd close-source, proprietary UI-customization system they have stuck to, is that it would slightly complicate tech-support instructions when giving directions via plain-text. **◔_**◔