How to Clear Customize Notifications (System Tray) Icons in Windows 7/Vista and XP

© Ramesh Srinivasan | Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP | 13th February 2007

This article describes how to clear the past and current items list in the Customize Notifications window in Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP. Also, at the end of the article we provide a VBScript to automate the task.


Fig 1: Customize Notifications Dialog

To clear the Customize Notifications items list manually, follow the steps below:

1. Click Start, type regedit.exe and press {Enter}

2. Navigate to the following branch:

[Windows XP]

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ TrayNotify

[Windows 7 & Windows Vista]

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Classes \ Local Settings \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ TrayNotify

3. Delete the two values namely IconStreams and PastIconsStream

4. Exit the Registry Editor

5. Terminate Windows Explorer / Shell cleanly. [Instructions for Windows XP / Windows Vista, Windows 7]


Fig 2: Customize Notifications items cleared. Currently running programs regenerate their entries.

Script to Automate

Here is a VBScript (runs in Windows XP/Vista/7) that can automate the above task for you. Download clear-notification-items.zip, unzip and run clear-notification-items.vbs file. It clears Customize Notifications items and restarts Explorer shell automatically.

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8 Comments

  1. DG
    said this on Friday, October 28th 2011 1:08 am

    Re: “The manual system did not work”

    Instead of deleting the registry entries using the keyboard delete key, right click on the entry and select delete in the pop-up menu.

  2. wicked
    said this on Tuesday, October 11th 2011 1:49 pm

    Bingo. Many thanks for the script. IT WORKS. The manual version does not.

  3. danny
    said this on Thursday, April 7th 2011 8:56 am

    I’ve been looking for this ages too! THANK YOU! but manual version does not work, don’t even waste your time. script version works as a CHARM!

  4. o m r
    said this on Wednesday, March 30th 2011 2:22 am

    thanks!
    no luck with the manual attempt, but the script worked perfectly, and will no doubt come in handy again…
    good work!

  5. Billy
    said this on Friday, October 22nd 2010 12:19 pm

    I used this before and some reason it won’t work now. Running windows 7 64 bit. Any ideas?

  6. man223fun
    said this on Tuesday, September 7th 2010 3:18 pm

    THANK YOU SO MUCH IT WORKED SO FINE but the manual deletion didn’t work as there were no such values as iconstreams and pasticonsstream on windows 7

  7. vanilla5
    said this on Friday, August 27th 2010 3:07 am

    Thanks so much, it worked!!

  8. unemployedninja
    said this on Sunday, December 13th 2009 1:19 pm

    Fantastic script! Glad to see you’ve added Windows 7 support. Thank you.

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