Windows 7: Remove Show Desktop Button

Ken,

It would be nothing for Microsoft to add this "Show Desk Top" in Control Panel's "Turn System Icons On or Off", just as you would for the Clock, Power,, Action Center, Up Date, etc. For instance, if you move the cursor to the field in the lower right hand corner and "right click",  the drop down list adds "Properies." If you select "Properies", it take right to a place that microsoft could use to turn the feature off.

So, Microsoft is just stubborn!

Friends, I agree with all those who are annoyed with the unwanted desktop icon beside clock. I am more frustrated to know that we as owners cannot do much then to introduce other problems from third party tools. Unless M$ monkees respect that customer provides their bread and butter.

Like many I use Windows only because of the mandate from my company (tie up with M$). This company made computers reach that last person too among which many are ignorant or careless or think annoyances are simple. I am not sure how they react if they see unwanted rodents in their kitchen, bedroom or drawing rooms; I hope they just ignore and sleep with them.

I have seen Windows since Win 3.1; after a leap of Win 95 all I have seen is that the disk size of the OS has increased insanely with little or decrease in customer satisfaction. M$ wants to sell to a group which they believe is stupid and cannot handle more features like modifying desktop themes. 

I am a valid user and I need a solution to this annoyance quickly. I cannot accept the reasons like "by stupid design". I don't like the show desktop icon beside the clock. Please provide solution as early as possible.

This is “by design”? Really? Can you please link to a doc, tech spec, memo, or something to indicate such? I find it hard to believe that the ability to remove the Show Desktop button would be purposely and specifically omitted.

It is possible to remove all the other aspects of the Start Menu, taskbar, and notification area, including System Icons, so what possible reason would there be to intentionally prevent users from removing that one element?

Foisting this action onto third-party tools is absurd and unacceptable. Why should I have yet another process running to perform this one, small, trivial action when it could easily have been incorporated into the shell along with the ability to remove all those other elements? (And yes, it has to be an active, running process, using up memory and CPU as opposed to just an auto-run program that hides it and quits, otherwise the button would return in the event of an Explorer crash.) Besides, the only third-party tools that do this do not remove it, they only hide it, leaving behind a blank space in the tray.

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.  (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.

Hope this helps because I have my own gripes too!

First, I'd like some clarification. I honestly don't know why this is making you crazy or where the button is that's causing it, but you can easily remove the "show desktop" button from any place. Remove it from the task bar by "unpinning", you can easily remove it from the programs section (when you click on the Windows globe (aka "start"), and it should be easy to remove from anything you want. Try the R-mouse button and "delete it from the list". I love shortcuts, but this button doesn't bother me in the slightest and I use it sometimes. When you have the mouse already, it's much quicker to use the button than transfer your hands to the keyboard so I put it back in my reconstituted "Quick Launch bar". Now that's something that made me nuts.

I also don't use "windows-d" as you suggest. Instead, I use windows-m (for "minimize all windows") but I'm anything but a novice or noob when it comes to windows. here's a link if you don't have one handy http://www.seoconsultants.com/windows/key/

we all just have to learn how to minimize/eradicate the annoyances MS programmed in to the OS. I think it's called job security; if they did it right the first time, then they wouldn't get paid to release the next 3 SPs, the multitude of fixes and updates that will begin bombarding us daily, etc. :D