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DADDY BOB'S COMPUTER Q & A
May 4,
2008
Q.
When I try to look at the icons in the lower
right of my screen, they keep disappearing
making it difficult to see what is there.
How can I make them stay visible?
A.
You are experiencing one of the things that
annoy me about the default settings of XP
and Vista. Apparently, Microsoft
believes that the less the average user sees
the better, but I dislike it when things are
deliberately hidden from me.
When
there are icons in this area, called the
System Tray, that you haven't clicked on
lately, the default setting of Windows will
cause them to be hidden. This may be all
well and good, but when I want to see what
is there, it is very annoying for them to
keep disappearing.
Items in
this System Tray are indications of programs
or portions of programs that are running all
the time, usually in the background. Some
things, like a anti-virus program,
anti-spyware program, your network status,
the volume control, etc., may be desirable.
But, many programs put their icons there and
have parts of them always running for less
desirable reasons.
What I
consider the worst of these are those that
constantly check for updates for themselves.
or try to make using the programs they
represent easier to use. Many programs just
assume that you will consider them the most
important thing you have ever installed, and
therefore put their icons there without your
permission. Some of the worst of these types
programs in my opinion are Apple's
QuickTime, most HP and other printers, Yahoo
messenger, and Microsoft Messenger.
If you
have only one program that periodically
checks for an update, it may not be too
noticeable, but when there five or more, it
can become a resource hogging hindrance. If
you have ever had a computer turned off for
a week or longer, and then turn it on, all
this checking for updates becomes obvious.
This is especially true if you do not have
an internet connection immediately active,
and each application causes a delay while it
times out from checking for one.
Others
applications will leave a small pre-start
program running all the time so that when
you try to open it, it will start up faster.
On older, slower computers, this may have
been an advantage, maybe. But in most
current computers, taking a few milliseconds
longer for an application to open is not
that advantageous for anything but the slow
opening program itself.
OK,
enough of my ranting about what I consider
ill behaved applications. Apparently,
Microsoft anticipated that many applications
would like to put their icons in the system
tray, so they included a way to hide some of
them automatically. They call this feature?
"Hide Inactive Icons". What is considered
inactive icons are those that the user has
not clicked on lately. That means that an
important icon for your anti-virus program
could be hidden since one rarely if ever
will click on it. Fortunately, what is
hidden or not hidden if anything is easily
programmable.
Right
click on a blank space on the task bar and
select Properties. An extra step is required
on Vista, click on the Notification Area
tab. You will see a check box for "Hide
inactive icons". Un-checking it will cause
all the icons in the system tray to be
displayed. Next to this item there is a
customize button that becomes active when
the Hide inactive icons box is checked .
When you click on this, you are given the
option to choose any item you want and "Hide
when inactive, Hide always or Hide never".
Choosing to hide any unused icon may be
easier for some than just removing it
entirely, but the option to do so has been
provided.
Without
going into a lot of detail, the fewer icons
in the System Tray the better. Too many
things starting up when Windows opens will
cause longer start up times and slow down
overall performance. See
HERE
for more on this. |
