Windows 11 - Microphone icon in system tray

You seem to be tarded or something, the world doesen't revolve murica and your privacy issues you seem to have. Stop being plain stupid and don't answer with this stupid **** if you doesen't have answer to the question, There are literally thousands other things there could be other than your first stupid thought of privacy and murica. Like the whole text is taking up the place making it impossible to click and see anything behind it. But your brain might not be able to understand that

You are right, the world doesn't revolve around the US.

Europe has even more stringent privacy laws than the US. In the US, only certain states have this legal restrictions, other US states don't have these restrictions. The whole EU is covered by GDPR.

https://recordinglaw.com/eu-recording-laws/

Yes, in the EU we take privacy very seriously. We have multiple privacy related laws and they actually work.
And I'm doubting if the US ones do work if you need big brother to tell you if something is being used.
Again I am not saying that those sickos who decide to spy upon others by silently taking over cameras and microphones should not be punished. But it is the way it is implemented: Forced upon you, Big brother style.

Of the EU laws privacy of the person is one of the most serious.
But another one is that a person should be in control of the tools he/she is using. Software should not be forced upon that person.

And there lies the crux: I'm forced to have a stupid icon on my screen of my work-laptop that I do not need to see on that laptop which only I use. So no big-brother protection of Microsoft is needed.

In case you did not notice from my replies: I am European and I want that icon gone.
I'm still wondering if having that icon where I don't want it is not breaking those stringent privacy laws you are talking about. Microsoft (and some other big brother acting companies) have been fined before by the EU since they were limiting the freedom of their users.
And those strict EU laws for privacy are actually more bothering for big US companies, who want to be in control of their users, than for us EU citizens, who want to be in control themselves.

Just download StartAllBack, it fixes almost everything win11 managed to destroy related to taskbar/start menu.

It let's you tuck the mic activity icon under the arrow for more tray icons

I'm back to the setup I was used to for the past decade+, top placement + showing labels + never combine taskbar buttons.

[edit]
also slim taskbar!!! The reg hack to do so was really wonky

This is the most useless comment I have ever seen. Nothing you have said on this thread is useful. Congrats on being useless.

If anyone is looking for an actual solution instead of somebody with 0 knowledge tell you no: Explorer Patcher is what you need.