One of the main new features of Windows 10 is the notification center and Quick Actions, visible on the desktop in the lower right next to the clock, with an icon in the form of an incoming message. The notification center and / or operations center was already present in Windows 7 and Windows 8, but it was so poorly structured that it was always completely useless. In Windows 10 the notification center has its own importance and allows you to interact with the system and installed applications as it happens in Android or iOS smartphones. When there is a notice to read, the notification center icon turns white to draw attention and groups the messages based on the application that generated them. For example, when the computer has been updated, a warning notification appears.
In the notification center there are also some buttons at the bottom that allow you to quickly access some computer settings.
There is therefore the key to open the PC settings, to connect to external devices, to write a note (with Onenote), to activate position detection, to activate a VPN, to activate do not disturb mode. The action buttons are predefined but the top ones can also be chosen individually. To do this, open the Windows 10 Settings, in the System section, under Notifications and Actions, pressing on the various buttons and choosing from those available.
You can also customize the quick action buttons in the notification center by opening it and then pressing the right button on one of the buttons below and choosing the " Edit quick actions " option. You can then drag the buttons the way you want, add new ones or remove the ones you don't need.
From the same Settings menu you can choose which types of notifications to receive . You can then immediately disable the Windows suggestions, somewhat useless. By clicking on the link " Select the icons to be displayed on the taskbar " you can decide which icons to hide or see in the notification area, ie in the lower right corner near the clock.
Press on " Activate and deactivate system icons " to then turn off the buttons you don't want to see and turn on the ones you use.
By scrolling down the options screen downwards, you can find the list of apps that can send notifications .
As you will notice there are not many traditional programs, only the Windows 10 apps, those downloaded from the Microsoft store, can interact with the system and appear in the notification center.
Among these are the Calendar, the Mail app, Cortana, Photos and several others including Windows Feedback which is better to disable.
If you want to disable notifications from all apps there is a dedicated option on the settings screen, where you can also disable notifications on the lock screen.
If you want to keep the notifications but disable the sounds you need to open the Control Panel, go to the Audio section and then on the Sounds tab. Find Notification and select Sound from the drop-down menu, None .
In the end, therefore, the notification center becomes almost useless if you do not use the Windows 10 Mail and Calendar application. Personally, however, I recommend keeping the notification center active, perhaps by disabling only the app alerts. This is because if there is a problem on the computer that Windows recognizes, it will be here that we will have the warning from which to solve the problem.
However, if you want to remove the notification center, you can do it from the group policy editor (not present in Windows 10 Home) or from a registry key.
To disable the Windows 10 notification center using the Windows registry, press the Windows-R keys together and run the regedit command.
From the registry editor, expand the key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Policies \ Microsoft \ Windows \
From here, in the left part of the screen, right click on the Windows folder and create a new key by selecting the New option.
Name the key Explorer .
After creating the Explorer key, click on the right pane with the right mouse button, select the "New" option and then " 32-bit DWORD value ".
Rename the DisableNotificationCenter key and give it a value of 1, which means disabled.
Changing the value to 0 will re-enable the notification center and its icon.
To disable the notification center Using the Group Policy Editor, run the gpedit.msc command from the Start menu or from the Run box. Then go to the options under User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Start Menu and Taskbar and on the right look for Remove Notifications and Notification Center by setting it to Enabled .
In either case, reboot the system for the changes to take effect.
