How do you disable miniature pop-up windows when hovering over icons in taskbar?

Anonymous
2009-11-17T20:57:10+00:00

Attempting to disable "small windows" that pop up when you mouse over icons in taskbar. Annoying me. They could be disabled in vista, but can't figure out how in W7. afraid i'm stuck with them. when i personalise and chose windows basic screen, "windows" become picture of icon. better, but still not good.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

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Anonymous
2013-11-03T07:27:06+00:00

Method 1: is not available in Windows 7 Home Premium , only in the Pro version. And I could not find any registry value that would match the gpedit.msc corresponding option.

Method 2: works on my system. Without "ExtendedUIHoverTime" registry entry:

With "ExtendedUIHoverTime" registry entry:

So it prevents (for the number of milliseconds specified) the pop up of the taskbar thumbnail, but does not remove the additional (!) pop up (text box black on white) I guess known as "taskbar icon name".

After hours of investigation on the Internet, the only efficient solution I could find is indeed this light program that also brings lots of additional functionalities. It works also on Windows 8.1, does not change anything to the regular registry (quoting FAQ -> "The only registry keys the tweaker modifies are it’s own settings. There are no registry keys for the options it provides. The tweaker does that by injecting a DLL to explorer, hooking/subclassing/some other methods of the dark side.")

http://rammichael.com/7-taskbar-tweaker

I now use it, no more registry manual manipulations ("ExtendedUIHoverTime" registry entry removed),  I love it.

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  1. Anonymous
    2011-08-04T23:29:56+00:00

    This solution worked in general. However, my annoyance is this:

    I am hovering my mouse over the different icons in the taskbar on the bottom, during which, each taskbar item gets highlighted as my mouse is over it. Let's say that I decide that I don't want to click any of those tasbar items and move my mouse off the taskbar to be used elsewhere. I noticed that the last taskbar item that my mouse was hovering over REMAINS highlighted! The solution proposed here does indeed get rid of the pop-ups (like the multiple folders pop-up list) when I move my mouse away from the taskbar, BUT the highlighted item is still there. This confuses me when I am looking somewhere else on the screen because usually an msn/ocs/whatever windows usually pop up to inform me of a message by highlighting its taksbar item and having this permanent highlight thing happen introduces visual noise that I find really annoying. PLLEEEEASE help. This happens on multiple PC's of mine running Windows 7 and I always run windows update so I have all of the updates as of the posting time. Thanks!

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-07-18T19:36:07+00:00

    I shouldn't have to get used to something that I don't want.

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-07-18T19:29:45+00:00

    I am in the same boat. I don't need the "Captain Obvious" box to show up immediately when I hover over something. I ALREADY KNOW WHAT THE ICON IS!

    I am unable to turn off this feature as well. I've begged, I've pleaded, I've tried to ignore it. Nothing works.

    Way to go Microsoft!

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  4. Anonymous
    2011-05-30T06:54:57+00:00

    BTW - read this while trying to get rid of these horrible pop ups too. Please note that this is NOT HELPFUL IN ANY WAY.  It is annoying every single day that I use Windows 7. I do large accounting spreadsheets and frequently have the popup show up right on top of what I'm trying to read, towards the bottom of my spreadsheet (and no, I can't scroll up, in case you think of that - I need the FULL real estate of my screen - it is terribly annoying to have to try to "avoid" the bottom 20% of my screen!! And I never use those pop-ups anyway! I just read the name of the file on the taskbar.  

    Microsoft... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE allow me to turn off this feature!!!   Thanks for listening.

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