XP: Disable all Balloon Tips Including Passport and Messenger

Contributed by MickeyMouse December 6, 2005  
Tagged: Windows

Windows pops up little tip balloons here and there. Most advanced users find these painful. This explains how to remove them once and for all.

Removing tip balloons and popups is a common request but it is not easily done. Many recipes already exist for this here on tech-recipes, and I’ll highlight them first.

XP: Disable Reminder Balloon to Create Passport Account . This registry hack will shut-up Passport only.

XP: Turn Off Pop-Up Balloons and Descriptions. This was my original recipe on this subject. I believe this is the one that everybody should try first; however, as the comments of that post suggests, it doesn’t work for all programs at all times.

This registry hack is more aggressive at stopping the tip balloons from appearing. It’s a registry hack so don’t muck with it if you don’t know what you are doing.

[list]1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type regedit and click OK
4. In the registry editor browse to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current
Version/Explorer/Advanced

5. Right-click in the right column
6. Select New and then DWORD
7. Name it EnableBalloonTips
8. Double-click on this your dword
9. Make sure the value = 0
10. Exit the registry editor