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
    2013-03-12T22:08:33+00:00

    Thanks for resolving this for me. I edited the register and it worked after a reboot.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-01-21T13:54:07+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

    Hi,

    Why dosent method number one work?

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-11-18T03:20:33+00:00

    I tried following step #1 of the first suggestion (copied-and-pasted the text into the 'Start' search feature, minus the quotation marks) and was told "no items match your search".  I tried to 'run' that program as well, and got the same result.  Following the second suggestion did absolutely nothing (except frighten me, given that I didn't see the "backup the registry" until after I was in the process of restarting my computer for the changes to take effect).  Whoever said, "Get used to it" and "it can be helpful" clearly doesn't have pop-ups blocking nearly half a page of documents they're trying to read and/or write.  Please let me know what I'm doing wrong, and any suggestions for finding the "gpedit.msc" function.

    Thanks.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-09-12T15:28:58+00:00
    • THIS FINE LITTLE SOFTWARE WILL CURE THIS PROBLEM - AND SOME. QUICK, SIMPLE, CNET RECOMMENDED, OTHER GREAT AND WELL NEEDED TWEAKS WITH IT TOO.
    • HERE IS YOUR SOLUTION

    http://download.cnet.com/Ultimate-Windows-Tweaker/3000-2094_4-10915128.html

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