Recipe 5.4. Turning Off Balloon Tips


Problem

You want to turn off balloon tips, which frequently don't give any useful information, especially for experienced users, and are more distracting then they are useful, particularly when they show up in the Notification Area.

Solution

Using the Registry

  1. Open the Registry Editor and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced.

  2. Create a new DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips.

  3. Give it a value of 0.

  4. Exit the Registry and restart. Balloon tips will be turned off. To turn them on, either delete the DWORD value, or else give it a value of 1.

Using downloadable software

TweakUI, one of a suite of free, unsupported utilities from Microsoft called PowerToys, can hide balloon tips. Get it from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp. After you install it and run it, go to the Taskbar section and uncheck Enable Balloon Tips. Click on OK, and the balloon tips will vanish after you reboot.

Discussion

Although balloon tips can be distracting, they also serve a useful purpose, so make sure you want to turn them off before using this recipe. For example, when you hover your mouse over an item on the Taskbar showing an open window, the balloon tip will show you the filename or web location of the window.

See Also

MS KB 307729, "HOW TO: Disable Notification Area Balloon Tips in Windows XP"



Windows XP Cookbook
Windows XP Cookbook (Cookbooks)
ISBN: 0596007256
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 408

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