The charms bar is a nice little feature in Windows 8 that lets you quickly access settings and perform searches while in a Windows Store Metro app, but it has also proven to be a little annoying. For example, whenever my mouse happens to touch the top right corner o bottom left corner of the screen, the charms bar pops up!
I’m not really sure why my mouse go up to the right or left corner of the screen, but it does and I end up having to shake my mouse to the left to get rid of the charms bar.
Yes it disappears in one second, but for some reason it is very distracting, especially if I’m working in a word document or something else. My eyes naturally move towards the bar whenever it shows up. There is some registry hack to disable the charms bar, but I find it to be fairly useful. Luckily, there is another registry value that can be added so that the charms bar only shows up when you move your mouse to the right or left corner of the screen and then slide it down or up the right edge of the screen.
This can be really useful if you want to keep your task bar on the right side of the screen! Microsoft should have thought of that since they allow you to move the task bar to the right side of the screen. Anything you do will keep bringing up the charms bar. Annoying!
To fix this, go to the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell
Here you want to create a new key called EdgeUI. Right-click on the right side and choose New – Key.
Now click on EdgeUI in the left pane and then right-click on the right-pane and choose New – DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Give it the name DisableCharmsHint and give it a value of 1.
That’s it! You don’t have to restart or even log off, the change goes into effect immediately. Now if you try to move your mouse to the bottom right or top right corner of the screen, nothing will happen. Only when you start moving down the right side from the top or up the right side from the bottom will the charms bar appear! Pretty sweet huh!
If you have been using Windows 8 for a while and have been getting annoyed because you accidentally keep opening the charms bar when you didn’t mean to, then this little registry trick will solve your problem. Enjoy!