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"Hide inactive icons" is greyed out in Taskbar Properties

Published: April 26, 2005
Updated  : July 27, 2005
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Symptoms

When you right-click the Taskbar and choose Properties, the option Hide inactive icons and the corresponding Customize button may be greyed out. More information on the Hide inactive icons feature can be found here: Description of Notification Area Settings

Cause

This happens if any of these two Policy settings are enabled for the Taskbar.

Resolution

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies\ Explorer

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies\ Explorer

  • Delete the value NoAutoTrayNotify

  • Delete the value NoTrayItemsDisplay

In Windows XP Professional, you can also accomplish the above using Group Policy Editor.

=> User Configuration

==> Administrative Templates

===> Start Menu and Taskbar

More Information

Turn off notification area cleanup corresponds to NoAutoTrayNotify registry value. Hide the notification area corresponds to NoTrayItemsDisplay value.