How in the Tech

Take action by disabling Windows 7 Action Center

By Adam Myers ⋅ July 15, 2009 ⋅ Tags: Windows 7

New to Microsoft Windows 7  is the Action Center which aims to be the single focal point for all system notifications. If your firewall is disabled or your anti-virus definitions are stale, these are some of the warnings that will show up in the Action Center accessible through it’s system tray icon. Undoubtedly helpful to many and downright annoying and obnoxious to others, it still remains an admirable attempt to Microsoft to clean-up the presentation of information and general noisiness of pop-ups coming out of the tray.

Controlling which messages appear in the Action Center is relatively straightforward – just open the Action Center by clicking on it’s icon located in the tray, by default.

If you are an experienced user and find the Action Center experience overkill it’s actually quite simple to disable, without digging deep into the registry like many Window’s tweaks.

1. Open the Control Panel.



2. In Control Panel, select All Control Panel Items and then Notification Area Icons.



3. Lastly, choose Turn system icons on or off.



4. The System Icons control dialog launches which provides you the ability to turn off many of the tray items, including the Action Center.