Windows 7 Please help me disable or remove text-box taskbar tooltips!

[SmithJohn]

Hello, I am new to this forum. I came here because I have spent over six hours googling for solutions to my problem, and no solutions have yet been found.

I have Windows 7 Ultimate installed and need help fixing a problem. I hope my description of the problem is clear and understandable and does not get anyone confused. I will also attach a screenshot at the end of this post. The taskbar on the bottom of my screen keeps randomly displaying textbox tooltips which remain forcibly visible for 5-10 seconds. It happens even when my cursor is nowhere near the taskbar, sometimes when I'm not even touching the touchpad. I have a very small screen resolution on my laptop so these random pop-ups appearing and sticking to the screen are incredibly distracting.

I would like to know how to disable taskbar tooltips completely. I am not having any issues with thumbnails or other tooltips, and I have already disabled explorer tooltips in folder options.

The tooltips I need to disable are the text boxes that pop up when the mouse cursor is placed over application buttons on the taskbar (they appear even when I don't place the cursor near the taskbar) which describe what the application is. This feature is extremely obtrusive, especially on a smaller screen. I know enough about computers to identify a program based upon the icon in the taskbar, I don't need and don't want invasive yellow text boxes popping up all over the place distracting me from my work and telling me what I already know.

I have searched google and microsoft's website, but no solutions were provided. I have already tried every search query possible ("disable taskbar tooltips", "remove taskbar tooltips", etc.) and looked through every result I could, to no avail. I tried editing my registry several times (see list below) but nothing worked. The only halfway solution I could find was a program called taskbar eliminator which completely hides the taskbar, thus preventing the dreadful text boxes from spamming up my screen. The problem with this is I like the taskbar, and it is very useful. The tooltips which display for running applications however, are a severe hindrance.

I would really appreciate a solution or fix which allows me to disable these taskbar textbox tooltips. I enjoy using windows 7 except when it comes to those specific tooltips, and I am sorry but if you do not have a solution for me I will be forced to uninstall microsoft windows from my laptop in place of an O.S. that does allow for disabling of taskbar tooltips.

Link Removed
This thread identifies the problem, but the only solutions are for removing thumbnails. I have clearly stated that thumbnails are not the problem here, so I hope people are not going to misunderstand my question and provide solutions to problems I'm not having (which is 90% of what I saw on google).

Things I tried that do NOT work:
- Registry Edits
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced: EnableBalloonTips to 0, ExtendedUIHoverTime to 60000, ShowInfoTip to 0
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse: MouseHoverTime to 4000
- TweakUI (installed/ran using XP compatibility mode)
- Ultimate Windows Tweaker

Possible solutions I don't know enough about to test:
- Create a replacement shell for explorer.exe
- Resource hacker

Please help! If you don't know a solution but know of an operating system that allows disabling of taskbar tooltips please tell me. I am not very familiar with Linux (I read somewhere that Ubuntu has an option to remove them), but I will literally do ANYTHING to get rid of these, even if it requires reformatting my PC (but only as a last resort).
- John
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[Drew]

I would suggest the issue is coming from & in the Google Chrome browser not, the OS. Maybe it's Pinned & can be Unpinned. Check settings in (lovely) Google Chrome. I have it installed but, use it very little, very rarely... so haven't mucked about w/ it's setting, too much. But, it has not put that on my Taskbar. I'll look @ my Chrome settings & options, see if I can see where you got this. But, I really don't think it's rooted in the OS.

Drew

 

[zvit]

The HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse is the correct place to change this. (If you are an advanced registry user. If not, there are other ways).

Since you say that you tried this and it didn't work for you, I would suggest changing the time of 4000 (which is 4 seconds) to something like 600000, which is 10 minutes. (It's not a solution but a workaround so they don't annoy you).

 

[SmithJohn]

The workaround does not work at all. I changed MouseHoverTime from 4000 to 600000 like you said but the popups still happen in less than 3 seconds. I tried a shareware app called Taskbar Eliminator but has many bugs and never keeps the taskbar hidden. I am about to just install Linux because this issue alone has ruined windows for me.