Did the Homegroup icon all of a sudden appear on the desktop after running a registry cleaner or using a third party tweaking tool? This article shows you the way to hide the Homegroup icon from the desktop.
Removing the Homegroup icon via the user interface is not possible, as the “Change desktop icons” dialog in Windows 7 doesn’t list Homegroup as an available option. The only way to remove the Homegroup icon is via the registry. Use these steps:
Click Start, type Regedit.exe and press Enter
Navigate to the following branch:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel
Double-click the value named {B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93} and set its data to 1
If the above value doesn’t exist, create the DWORD (32-bit) value manually.
Repeat the same in this branch, as well:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel
The CLSID {B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93} is the special folder GUID for Homegroup, and it’s set to remain hidden on the desktop by default.
Exit the Registry Editor.
Press F5 to refresh the desktop. The Homegroup icon should have disappeared!
About the author
Ramesh Srinivasan founded Winhelponline.com back in 2005. He is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for 10 consecutive years from 2003 to 2012.
