I’ve written before about hiding the shortcuts for Homegroup or Favorites in Windows Explorer under Windows 7 if only because I like a clean and simplified interface. The minimalist approach can further be extended if you actually don’t use the Homegroup feature whatsoever.

Briefly, Homegroup is a networking feature new to Windows 7 that greatly aides in reducing the complexity of sharing content and devices amongst multiple computers on your local network. If your PC is the lone system on your network then Homegroup serves little purpose other than stealing system resources.

Open Control Panel and search for homegroup and follow the link for Choose home group and sharing options.

Here you can control what exactly is shared out to the local network via Homegroup, however we are more interested in the option Leave this homegroup… near the bottom of the dialog window.

We’ve now disabled the Homegroup feature however the underlining services are still left running in the background. The two services HomeGroup Listener and HomeGroup Provider.

Open the Services window from Start->Search.

Double click on HomeGroup Listener to open it’s properties.

Under Startup type change the drop-down to read Disabled. Click OK at the bottom of the dialog.

Repeat the process but this time choosing HomeGroup Provider. The next time you restart your PC neither system service for HomeGroup will start – saving you system resources and perhaps even a few seconds on your boot-up time.