The new Notification & Action Center in Windows looks great. The Action Center is split into two major sections – Notifications and Quick Actions and lets you take a look at all the notifications from all different apps, and even the system. But if you wish, you can disable Action Center in Windows 10. Let us see how to do it by tweaking the Windows Registry or the Group Policy Editor. But before that, we will see how to hide its icon only via Settings.
Hide Action Center icon in Taskbar
If you wish to simply hide the Action Center icon which appears on the extreme right side of the Taskbar, open Settings > Personalization > Taskbar.
Here, click on the Turn system icons on or off link and then toggle the switch against Action Center to the Off position.
This will hide the Action Center icon right away.
If you wish to open Action Center, you will have to use Win+A keyboard shortcut.
Read: How to Disable Notification Center in Windows 11.
Disable Action Center in Windows 10
Using Registry Editor
First, create a system restore point and then right-click on Start button to open the WinX Menu.
Select Run, and in the space provided, type regedit and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.
Having done that, navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
Now, right-click on the empty space in the right pane and select New > DWORD (32-bit).
Name it DisableNotificationCenter.
Now, double-click on it and give it a value of 1.
Click on OK and exit the Registry Editor.
Using Group Policy Editor
If your version of Windows 10 ships with the Group Policy Editor, Run gpedit.msc and navigate to the following setting:
User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar
Now in the right pane, double-click on Remove notifications and Action Center and select the Enabled option. Click Apply and Exit.
By following these instructions, you will have disabled the Notification and Action Center in Windows 10.
Restart your computer to see the change.
You will find that the Action Center is missing from the taskbar!
To enable Action Center back, simply delete DisableNotificationCenter or change its value to 0 and restart your Windows 10 PC.
I have no HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsExplorer key. Only CurrentVersion. Cant find the Explorer key in CurrentVersion.
Same as Foobar – the Explorer key node does not exist.
This did not work for me BUT the following did…………………………… Note the Local Machine hive
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindowsExplorer
******Note I had to manually create a new “Explorer”, similar to below it did not exist in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive.********
Create Dword32 “DisableNotificationCenter”
Now, double-click on it and give it a value of 1.
This does work to disable the icon however I’m still being prompted for Windows Firewall regardless of the setting here. In order to hide the firewall messages you must turn those off from Security and Maintenance.
It’s somewhat useful for me to enable and disable it. thank you.
Seems Creators update has removed all this functionality. There is no longer Action Centre option to show or hide. As well, you need to be administrator to run the registry or gpedit tweaks. And you cannot run-as else it does it as the admin-user, so no solution.
The only way seems to be to upgrade the user, run whichever tweak you choose, then reset the user to the lower access level.
Typical Microsoft, whatever useful things exist, they find a way to remove the ease of doing it, or remove the feature completely!