Pages

June 03, 2015

Annoying Windows 10 icon in system tray

Windows 7 and 8 users are now getting a free update to the new Windows 10, but they've invaded our computers to tell us. There is no easy way to remove this icon and stay enrolled for the update. That's right, it's easier to just stay with it until the update happens, either in or soon after July 29 2015.

Here's a good article on what you can do if you really must, and why the icon is so hard to remove....

What is the “Get Windows 10″ Tray Item and How Do You Remove It?

The worst thing about KB3035583 is that it is an executable that starts with your system.

The executable “GWX.exe” autostarts through the Task Scheduler. GWX.exe is the system tray icon. When you click the system tray icon, it spawns the application “GWXUX.exe”, which is the upgrade dialog discussed earlier.

To make this icon and its notifications go away, Microsoft unhelpfully recommends hiding them.

This works for the current session, but restart your system (which happens from time to time), and it reappears. In other words, it’s no simple feat to make it go away. You can’t right-click on the icon and tell it not to bug you anymore, and you could remove its entry from the Task Scheduler, but that doesn’t actually remove the GWX application from your system.

If you don’t want this item on your system, we recommend removing the update altogether because we don’t feel it is critical to upgrading to Windows 10, and even if it is, you can always go back on July 29 and reinstall it.


You can uninstall the updates, take the steps described in the link, but remember to check back for updates after July 29, to ensure you get the new Windows 10, which most would want.

No comments:

Post a Comment