Digital Life

Many programs put an icon in the system tray or notification area for easy and quick access, besides providing some progress indication or notification when needed. But not everybody appreciate the importance of systray. If you feel that notification system tray area is of no use to use, and you want to recover the bottom right space to make more room for Windows Taskbar, it’s possible to turn off and disable system tray with a simple registry hack.

1. Click on Start button.
2. In Windows XP, click Run and then type regedit and hit ENTER. In Windows Vista, type regedit into Start Search and hit ENTER.
3. Navigate to the following registry key in Registry Editor:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
4. Right click on Explorer, and then select New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value (DWORD Value in Windows XP). Type NoTrayItemsDisplay as its value name.

Skip this step is NoTrayItemsDisplay registry entry is already available. Note that is NoTrayItemsDisplay, and not NoTrayItemDisplay.
5. Double click on NoTrayItemsDisplay, and set the value data to 1.

6. Log off and log on again or restart computer to make the change effective.

Once set, all program, system and application icons will be hidden and does not been shown. Don’t worry, the applications are still running as usual, just that the icons are hidden. The only thing left is the clock, as shown in figure below.



To re-enable and bring back the notification area or system tray to the display, just delete the NoTrayItemsDisplay registry key, or change the value data for the key to 0. Beside, if you suddenly lose or cannot find all your icons on the system tray (it’s different from missing icons in system tray notification area), try searching for NoTrayItemsDisplay registry key at above and any location, and if found, set its value to 0.

Windows 7 Beta 1 (build 7000) is now available for free download. However, Microsoft has not yet officially launch the beta program or customer preview program for general public yet, so there is no activation product key available yet. For Windows 7 enthusiasts who intends to use Windows 7 beyond the 30-day evaluation period aka activation grace period, other than rearm method and frankenbuild+OEM BIOS emulation method, the best bet is to use Windows 7 activation crack which disable WPA.

pembros, a hacker who developed the popular TimerLock activation crack for Windows Vista, has compiled an executable, TimerNuke, that run a batch command script to disable the activation process in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. TimerNuke, also known as Windows 7 & 2008 Activation Disabler, actually does not stop the activation grace period countdown clock. Instead, it disables and removes several several services and files related to software licensing in order to bypass and skip the activation requirement.

What TimerNuke does is that when executed, it stops and changes the startup type of sppsvc (Software Protection), sppuinotify (SPP Notification Service) and SLUINotify (SL UI Notification Service) services to disable. Then, the TimerNuke simply takes ownership and full control permissions on the following files, before backing them up and finally deleting them away.

%SYSPATH%\SLLUA.exe
%SYSPATH%\sppsvc.exe
%SYSPATH%\SLUI.exe
%SYSPATH%\sppuinotify.dll
%SYSPATH%\SLUINotify.dll

Download TimerNukeSetup.zip (mirror) TimerNukeSetup.zip or download from MDL Forum.

Current Version: 1.0.5.0 Final 1.0.5.0 BETA

Once the Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 is been nuked and cracked with TimerNuke, Windows will stop asking user to activate. The activation status and product ID becomes not available or unknown. Hence, the Windows may run forever without activation permanently.

Activation Status after Crack by TimerNuke

As an added bonus, the crack may also remove expiry date timebomb of beta and RC releases of Windows 7, although the TimerNuke crack does not specifically target to remove the time bomb. Who would want to use beta build when RTM build is released anyway?

TimerNuke version 1.0.5.0 supports both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) editions of Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7. It supports at least up to Windows 7 Beta build 7000. However, it likely supports to crack the final RTM release of Windows 7 if the product activation module in the OS is not significantly changed.

To uninstall TimerNuke and reset, restore or return your computer activation state to original default, use the TimerNuke uninstall script.

Windows 7 pre-beta release has been leaked to Internet for free download, however, without a valid product key to activate the Windows 7, the system can only run for 30 days maximum, or up to 120 days with rearm hack.
Luckily, Windows Vista beta and RC product key can be used to activate Windows 7 beta version too (at least working on both Windows 7 build version 6801 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) editions. However, not all people is storing such an old information or email dated from 2 years ago.

While it’s possible to search for a valid product key using Google search engine, however, most of it may have been blacklisted or not working with Windows 7. But all hope is not lost, as it appears that some product key for Windows 7 pre-release preview (pre-beta version) have been leaked for free usage too.

Here’s a list of 15 Multiple Activation Key (MAK) which is the genuine legit product key for Windows 7 activation. Each product key can be used for unlimited number of client system activation, unlike a Windows Vista beta or release candidate key which limited to activate up to 10 copies of installed system.

J7PYM-6X6FJ-QRKYT-TW4KF-BY7H9
D67PP-QBKVV-6FWDJ-4K2XB-D4684
HQDKC-F3P6D-C9YYM-HRB89-QDBB7
76DX2-7YMCQ-K2WCP-672K2-BK44W
2RG93-6XVFJ-RKHQ7-D2RTT-3FMQT
TT63R-8JGWP-WWT97-R6WQC-4CVWY
YQJX6-D6TRM-VWBM7-PHDJK-YPXJH
Q7J7F-GQHBT-Q42RQ-2F8XV-2WKKM
KH4X7-JY8G7-RCD7G-BYDJW-YTPXH
WYBJ8-8QVP3-24R82-VV2VP-72Q9W
9DP2R-W78GJ-GJBKW-CKR46-H3WYT
CXB7F-WWCM4-BP9V3-2YH43-RK8Y6
W9BYV-K2TB8-4YDJT-QBQWP-KFDHB
WGDJW-B8DYC-WVKX4-6MKF4-B8PK8
2PHXF-9PBDW-D3WWY-CPDKD-XG87V

Windows 7 early pioneers (or genie pigs) can use one of the key to activate Windows 7 online or by phone activation.

Update: Official free giveaway of Windows 7 Beta product key now available. The Windows 7 product key distributed is actually the same set for everybody.