Simple. Right click on the Start button/ Click on Properties/ click on Taskbar/ Make sure "hide inactive icons" is checked/ Click customize/ Boom; your icons will display/click on desired icon to be deleted and click on "always hide". Done. If you want to see icon at some future time just click on the "balloon" in the system tray. Win XP.
There are a few different things you need to do in order to do this. You can't get rid of all of them, but you can reduce their number. First, disable them in any program that gives you the option to do so. Sometimes you can do this by right clicking on the icon and going to a "properties" or "tools" category. One other thing is to right click on the task bar, go to properties, and then go to the "Notification Area" tab (I'm running Vista, it might be a different tab in XP). Make sure that "Hide Inactive Icons" is checked. The final thing to do is to uninstall software that puts an icon there if you don't need it. Just make sure you don't install anything you do need. For example, a media player can be commonly used on the internet, even if you never open it otherwise, and don't uninstall your anti-virus software. It should be running in the background, and it probably has an icon in the tray. Hope this helps.
The section where clock resides on the Taskbar, is called "System Tray". The procedure to remove icons from the System Tray is as under: Step 1: Start -> Run Step 2: In the run window, write down "Regedit" without using quotation mark click "OK". This will start Registry editor. Step 3: In the left pane of Registry Editor, there will be almost five basic "Keys". We concern with only two (1. HKEY_CURRENT_USER, 2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE). Step 4: Expand the HKEY_CURRENT_USER by clicking on the plus sign on the left side and then -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> Current Version -> Run.
When you select the Run Key, the values correspond to the Key will appear in the right pane of the Registry window. Look each value's path and try to find the exact value you wish to remove from System Tray. Delete all the values correspond to the programs you don't want to be listed in the taskbar and that's all about your problem. Step 5: Go to the next Key through the same procedure as mentioned in Step 4. Note: Do not remove the values namely "HotKeysCmds" and "IgfxTray" in step five because these are necessary for system tray itself. Step 6: Restart your system and you will have no extra Icons in your task bar.
