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
    2009-11-18T14:46:22+00:00

    Hey quantumsingularity,

    Thanks for posting in Microsoft answers!

    Method 1:

    You may try the following steps to disable the Taskbar thumbnail preview in Windows 7:

    1. Click “Start” and type “gpedit.msc” and hit Enter
    2. Navigate to User Configuration, Administrative Templates, and Start Menu and Taskbar in left pan of Group Policy Editor.
    3. Locate “Turn off Taskbar Thumbnails” in right pan of Group policy editor and double click.
    4. Select “Enabled” and click “Apply” and “OK”.

    Method 2:

    If the above method doesn’t help, you may try the below steps:

    You can disable the taskbar thumbnail feature (sort of) in Windows 7 using a registry edit. This can be done by setting the taskbar thumbnail preview hover delay to a large value (say 10000 milliseconds or more), so that the preview is not immediately generated when you hover over a taskbar icon.

    1. Click Start, type regedit.exe and press ENTER
    2. Navigate to the following location:

        HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced

    1. Create a new DWORD (32-bit) value named ExtendedUIHoverTime
    2. Double-click ExtendedUIHoverTime and click Decimal
    3. To increase the hover delay to 5 seconds, type 5000 . Type 10000 for 10 seconds and so forth…
    4. Exit the Registry Editor.
    5. Restart your computer.

    Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up registry, refer the link below:

    Backup the registryhttp://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Back-up-the-registry

    Hope this helps!

    Gokul – Microsoft Support

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  2. Anonymous
    2009-12-08T03:25:18+00:00

    I've tried gpedit to turn off the taskbar thumbnails but it just doesn't work. I've tried editing the registry value directly, doesn't work. Why the heck doesn't it work? Someone obviously included a way to disable the feature but it may or may not work? Why is the the best suggestion the "extend hover time" workaround? It's truly maddening.

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  3. Anonymous
    2009-12-08T05:45:18+00:00

    You are not alone.  You cannot disable the Aero TaskBar thumbnails via the typical settings.

    I'm guessing this is fairly low on the Microsoft bug lists, as it is simply an inconvenience, while there are other, more pressing problems occupying their time.

    -Noel

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  4. Anonymous
    2009-12-19T11:20:53+00:00

    This is the frustrations we always experience with MS. This is the typical arrogance MS always has. They just impose whatever features (or annoyances) to the public, and want you to feel great about it, because they feel great about it, and you should, too!

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