Question: I've searched for an answer to this one and I haven't found one yet. How do i remove a single item from Windows' System tray? I'm targeting Windows XP.

**Edit:** This is not about preventing items from starting up. I *want* the program to keep running, I just need another script/program to remove the first one's entry from system tray.

**Second Edit:** One approach that I can think of is to try to hide the intended app by modifying registry keys. On several test machines I've found some registry entries that match the System tray information at

```
HKEY_USERS\something-that-looks-like S-1-5-21-682003330-1563985344-725345543-1003\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify

```

with `BalloonTip, IconStream` and `PastIconsStream` containing systray information. The important one is `IconStream`.

On other machines, these are found at

```
hkey_classes_root/local/setting/software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/TrayNotify
```

I'm quite sure there's no danger in changing those specific registries, but I don't know how to write code for that. Can anyone help me with the code and with confirming if this has the desired effect of hiding the systray icon for an active program?

Answer: 
Just click `Start Menu > Run`, and type `msconfig`.
On the `Startup` tab, you can see the programs which start together with Windows. You can clear ticks of programs that you don't want to run in system tray.

Another way to remove the programs from system tray is, you can go to Options of the relevant program and find the option to disable starting with Windows. Some programs do not have this option intentionally, so you have to try `msconfig` or any of 3rd party startup management programs.
Icons in the notification area always belong to a window. This may be hidden but in any case it belongs to a single process. So closing the related process also removes the notification icon. If you want it permanently removed, just don't start the respective program.