Windows 10: Cannot remove Windows Defender Tray Icon

With my taskbar startup tab being empty and not existing on my CCleaner startup tab, the "Windows Defender notification Icon" (MSASCuiL.exe) keeps finding a way to add itself to my startup, even after deleting its entry from the Run registry key. No matter what I do, every time I boot, the icon shows up about 10 seconds in and the registry key leading to its executable just seems to reappear. I have no idea what to do at this point.

:)

 

Remove Windows Defender icon from Tray in Windows 10

I want to remove the windows defender icon from my system tray. It serves no purpose other to tell me it's running and quick access to the app, neither which I need or want. I know you can 'select which icons appear in the taskbar' but this doesn't actually
remove the icon from the tray, it just shoves it into a menu (I hate this). Win 7 and 8 had the ability to remove the icon altogether, is there a way to do this in win 10?

 

Uninstallin defender

Defender cannot be uninstalled but you can disable it and remove it from system tray if you wish to.

 

Hello devoi, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

You might see if an option in the tutorial below may be able to help.

Hide or Show Windows Defender Notification Area Icon in Windows 10

 

I appreciate the help, but that unfortunately doesn't solve my problem. It doesn't even appear in the task manager startup list, so I can't end it from there, and I'd really much rather not have the program running rather than it being hid by that arrow that just ends up taking up space anyway.

 

If you don't want to use Windows Defender, then you could use step 3 in OPTION TWO of the tutorial below to turn off Windows Defender and remove its notification area icon.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html

 

I do use windows defender, I would just really like to not have that icon there. When I did my last PC build, I was able to disable the icon through task manager. In this case, I don't have such luck.

 

Unfortunately, as long as Windows Defender is running, its icon will show in the notification area unless hidden using the method above.

 

You may need to end the background process of the systray icon in Processes/Background Processes list of Task Manager, then the icon will stay away.
But, you will need to do this every time you open an instance Defender.

 

Would there be a way to "re-add" the icon to the task manager startup tab? The icon executable isn't tied to the rest of the service; I used to have windows defender running in the background without this icon on my old build, I just can't disable it the same way.

 

A lot of us who upgraded from Windows 7 with Security Essentials to Windows 10 with Defender missed the reassurance of seeing the MSE icon in the Taskbar. Once you open Defender the icon will appear, and stays there after you close Defender. We found the easiest way to make it appear automatically was to add an entry in the registry to run %ProgramFiles%\Windows Defender\MSASCuiL.exe

Since the Anniversary Update we don't need to, Microsoft have added it for us. This is the registry entry that puts Defender on your Taskbar at start up. You could delete this value (it's not the one that runs Defender itself) it just starts the graphical User Interface (hence 'ui' in its name). But as I said, if you open the Defender UI yourself at any time the icon will appear and stay there after you close it.

The easiest way to hide it permanently is Option One in Brink's Tutorial. Do that and you'll only see the icon if you click the ^ icon to see the hidden icons.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...a.html#option1

 

I've already tried deleting that registry entry. Every time I restart, the registry entry returns (I really do not know how it keeps putting itself back into the registry). I basically just want to keep the functionality of everything as normal, just without that icon being in the hidden tray or on the taskbar tray. I only use 2 other tray icons, and I'd rather not have that arrow just to hide 1 icon.

 

So it does, I hadn't tried deleting it before (I like seeing the icon there). I'm guessing the Defender engine checks for that registry entry when it starts up and puts it back if its missing.

You can make the icon disappear from the taskbar by using Task Manager to end the MSASCuiL.exe task, though it doesn't actually disappear until Explorer notices it's gone - it will vanish when you hover the mouse over it. Or just get Explorer.exe to do anything, even opening File Explorer will do it. Perhaps you could set up a scheduled task to end the MSASCuiL.exe task automatically shortly after you login?

 

Instead of deleting the registry entry , try adding -hide to the end

"%ProgramFiles%\Windows Defender\MSASCui.exe" -hide -runkey

 

Tested that. The registry entry is rewritten to remove ' -hide -runkey' when you restart.