Completely remove windows 8.1 taskbar

Question

Does anyone know of a way to completely remove the taskbar in windows 8? I have tried taskbar eliminator as suggested in a different post however it doesn't work reliably in windows 8. I'm using this windows 8 installation for media center purposes and so the taskbar is really getting in the way, any ideas? I don't mind having to do some registry changes if that's what's necessary. Thanks!

Solution

I've been dealing with this issue for a couple years now. I'm not sure how to eliminate the taskbar programatically- though of course it can be done, as evinced below- but I know of a couple convoluted solutions:

• StarDock's "ObjectDock" software: you can pick up a free trial by Googling it. If you set it to start on system startup, make the dock transparent, remove all the icons, and use an empty .ico file as a placeholder (it needs at least one shortcut present, or else it populates the dock itself), this will take care of your taskbar completely in an unobtrusive way (once you go through the trouble of setting it up, that is.) Also, the trial doesn't seem to expire if used in exactly this manner, though you'll get popups nagging you to purchase, which I finally did.

• "Dexpot": Dexpot also has a 'remove the taskbar' function, if virtual desktops are your thing. To enable it, install Dexpot, right click on the tray icon, select "configure desktops," go into 'tools' for your particular desktop, and tick "taskbar." This beats the native Windows 'hide the taskbar' feature, but isn't quite as seamless as ObjectDock.

That's the best I've been able to come up with. If I'm able to figure out how to do this with a script, or via the registry, I'll edit my answer and link to the script/registry change.

Comments

[magicandre1981]

activate the option to autohide the taskbar (this is part of Windows since Win95).

[Ramhound]

This just disables the Windows 8 notifications; it does not remove the taskbar.