Fricken System Ballons
I told myself that this blog would not really have too much personal in it. Well Now I have to pull out the dusty soap box and jump on. I think that ballons on Windows XP are fine for some people but for others I am having flashbacks to my MAC days. Yes I owned one way back when before it was cool to have one. Now my parents and other out there that dont want to know how something happens behind the scenes like to know that the USB mouse that they plugged in is working and that they there are new updates to install among other things. I do not need this, for one I go like clock work to Windowsupdate.microsoft.com weekly like clock work and when I plug in a new device I know how to look in Device manager to see if it is working again.
Which brings me back to the point that I was trying to make all along and that was I need a needle to pop the ballons or something and then I came across a KB article at MS finally.
Here is the website if you want to read yourself http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307729 I have also cut the most important parts out for you other than the statement that you should always be careful when you edit the registry. I wonder how many people periodically back up their registry. If you answered yes you are in serious need of some help.
| 1. | Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then press ENTER. |
| 2. | Navigate to the following subkey: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced |
| 3. | Right-click the right pane, create a new DWORD value, and then name it EnableBalloonTips. |
| 4. | Double-click this new entry, and then give it a hexadecimal value of 0. |
| 5. | Quit Registry Editor. Log off Windows, and then log back on. |
These steps disable all Notification Area balloon tips for this user. There is no way to disable balloon tips for specific programs only.
Ok, soap box is now put away and I have finished ranting for the night.