Windows 11 - Microphone icon in system tray

Because I'm a streamer who routes his microphone into Voicemeeter mixing software, which needs to run 100% of the time otherwise I have no input/output audio. Due to this, the mic privacy icon in the taskbar is persistent. I would very much like to remove it.

I'd also like to get an explanation if and then how to get rid of this icon. As someone else in the thread said I also use a program called Voicemeeter for my mic input. This means that my mic has to be on 100% of the time, leading to that microphone icon showing at all times.

Tho I have it slightly worse than the original poster. My microphone icon is stacked behind another icon.

I have only been on Windows 11 for like a week and I already want to go back to Windows 10 because of this icon.

Honestly, how would something like this go unnoticed? And how could anyone say that this looks good/normal?

I wouldn't have cared if the icon was placed beside all the other icons and sort of blended in together with them, but this just looks absolutely horrendous.

Disable the mic in the sound settings when not using it and the icon goes away.

You completely missed the point of this thread --- they wanted to keep the mic but hide the icon.

Which is impossible because it is illegal in many states in the US to secretly record a conversation without the other person's permission. So Microsoft made sure that there is no way to hide the mic icon. Therefore I put these sentences in big fonts.

So if the mic icon is there, then the end-user is either using the mic themselves or Cortana (or similar some other software is listening in the background). Or the enable "listen to this device" because they read it somewhere on some forum.

it has nothing to do with being some secretive person trying to invade some ones privacy like a spy alot and I mean ALOT of people simply want it gone for the aesthetic.

You do realise it's not going to do anything to stop someone recording a conversation without the other person knowing because they CANNOT SEE IT, if I am recording on MY computer and not theirs don't you?

You do realize that there are plenty of scenarios like one spouse installed some kind of secret monitoring software on the other spouse's computer and secretly record their conservations.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50166147

This mic icon protects the other spouse.

Or you downloaded some pirated software which contained spyware (and it turn on the microphone).

People on this thread kept on asking for some simple registry deletion that will turn off the microphone icon. Imagine the spyware delete a few registry items and shuts off the microphone icon when the spyware installs itself onto your computer.

Therefore this mic icon cannot be removed on purpose. I surely hope that Microsoft's security team would not be so stupid that this important security/privacy protection can be defeated by a simple registry deletion.