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Use the registry to hide the Windows Update icon in the System Tray

I already went through the steps mentioned in several articles (see the procedure below), and my settings exactly match what they describe. This is for Windows 10 21H2 and 22H2.

A little background: our company doesn't want the update icon to be visible for anyone, so we pushed the registry change to everyone. For the majority of our user base, it works. For a minority, including my own laptop, it simply doesn't work. The setting is ignored. All else is equal (admin rights, version of Windows, software, computer model, etc. etc.).

Before I ask "What can I do?" I'd actually like to ask, "Is anyone else seeing this?"

Thank you!

- Z

PS: Here is the procedure

Disable the Windows 10 Update Status Tray Icon

  1. Open regedit

  2. Go to the following Registry key.
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings

  3. On the right, modify or create a new 32-Bit DWORD value TrayIconVisibility.
    Note: Even if you are running 64-bit Windows you must still create a 32-bit DWORD value.

  4. Leave its value data as 0 to disable the tray icon

  5. Reboot