Sunday, 25 April 2010

Hiding Skype in the Windows 7 task bar

Windows 7 on the whole is great. It rocks.

However, something that's bugged me since moving to it is that Skype's window always shows on the task bar, unlike it used to hide on Windows Vista and earlier OS's.

Update
Since writing this, Skype have added a UI setting for this: see Skype's Options->Advanced->Advanced settings.

Old fix
  1. Locate the Skype folder under Start->All Programs.
  2. Move the Skype shortcut from the Skype folder to the All Programs->Startup folder (note this requires Administrator rights).
  3. Open the context menu for the newly-moved shortcut.
  4. On the compatibility tab, select the compatibility mode to be Windows Vista (Service Pack 2).
  5. Quit Skype and start it from the Startup folder.
  6. Enjoy not seeing Skype in the task bar!