How do I disable balloon tips in the notification area in Windows XP or Vista?

Problem description

You want to prevent balloon tips from being displayed in the notification area. This article helps you do this.

Note The steps in this article disable all balloon tips in the notification area for this computer. You cannot disable balloon tips only for specific programs.

To have us fix this problem for you, go to the “Fix it for me” section. If you’d rather fix this problem yourself, go to the “Let me fix it myself” section.

Fix it for me

To fix this problem automatically, click the
Fix this problemlink. Then, click
Runin the
File Downloaddialog box, and then follow the steps in this wizard.

Note This wizard may be in English only; however, the automatic fix also works for other language versions of Windows.

Note If you are not on the computer that has the problem, you can save the automatic fix to a flash drive or to a CD, and then you can run it on the computer that has the problem.

Now go to the "Did this fix the problem?" section.

Let me fix it myself

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322756 How to back up and restore the registry in WindowsTo disable balloon tips in the notification area, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then press ENTER.

2. Locate the following subkey:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

3. Right-click the right side pane, create a new DWORD value, and then name it EnableBalloonTips.

4. Double-click EnableBalloonTips, and then give it a value of 0.

5. Close Registry Editor.

6. Log off Windows, and then log back on.

Now go to the "Did this fix the problem?" section.

Did this fix the problem?

Check whether the problem is fixed. If the problem is fixed, you are finished with this article. If the problem is not fixed, you can contact support.

References

For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

282962 Balloon tips are not read by Narrator Accessibility Tool