Howto: disable annoying Wireless Connectivity status in XP

Have you ever gotten this critical message or the equivalent?

Hi! You’re now connected to the same wireless network you were connected to before you closed your laptop, the only wireless network available, in fact, and your signal strength is Excellent in case there was some doubt about your ability to get a clear signal from the wireless access point sitting in the closet six feet away from you. Please stop what you’re doing and move the cursor down to me to acknowledge this critical information!

Yesterday I was asked to disable it on a client’s laptop, since there was – in fact – only one available wireless access point in the entire area. Here’s the way to do it in XP:

  1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then press ENTER. 
  2. Navigate to the following subkey:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced 
  3. Right-click the right pane, create a new DWORD value, and then name it EnableBalloonTips. 
  4. Double-click this new entry, and then give it a hexadecimal value of 0. 
  5. Quit Registry Editor. Log off Windows, and then log back on. 

This will only disable the annoying balloon, so you’ll still see your status in the tray. I’ve always found ipconfig, ping and tracert to be sufficient in XP.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.