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
    2011-07-18T19:36:07+00:00

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

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  2. 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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  3. 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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  4. Anonymous
    2011-04-26T17:48:02+00:00

    Method2 works only for a while.  Then, Windows 7 will revert back to the annoying taskbar popup.  By this, I'm not referring to popup thumbnails.  The only way to fix this temporarily is to reboot.  How do we fix this severe annoyance permanently?

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