Excellent Tricks To Hide Unread Messages Notification On Windows XP Welcome Page
Windows XP users must have noticed that the moment XP boots up and Logon Screen or Welcome Screen appears for users to logon to the desktop, a message is displayed on the Welcome page. This message notifies that the user has specific number of unread emails, together with user’s email address. For E.g., “2 unread email messages”.
This count of unread messages appears even when the PC is locked and the user has to type in the password to re-enter the desktop. The unread messages count is displayed individually for each user and is normally shown once the user starts using Microsoft’s email services like Windows Live Hotmail or Microsoft Outlook.
All unread messages from applications such as Outlook Express, Outlook, Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Mail etc are taken into consideration while calculating the unread messages count depending on the setup and usage of these applications. This message is quite useless and sometimes irritating, especially when the user’s email address is displayed together.
However, it is possible to get rid of this message from the Welcome page by using the below mentioned tricks:
Method 1
The easiest way to remove the message is by using TweakUI PowerToys.
1. You need to download the setup file “TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe” from the Microsoft Download Center (download link). Once downloaded, you need to install TweakUI and run it.
2. Now locate “Logon” option present within the left pane and select it.
3. Click on the option “Unread Mail”.
4. Just uncheck and unselect the option when it prompts for your choice for showing the emails that are unread.
5. Users are allowed to apply new setting (i.e. without unread mail message count) either to their own account or all user accounts on the system.
Method 2
You may stop the unread messages count from appearing on the Welcome page by modifying the registry. To follow this method, go to “Run” option in the Start menu and type in “regedit.exe” to open Registry Editor.
For present logged on user, locate the registry key mentioned below:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\UnreadMail
For all user accounts on the system, locate the registry key mentioned below:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\UnreadMail
Within the right pane, check for value data by the name “MessageExpiryDays”. If you are unable to find it, you need to create new DWORD value data, name it as “MessageExpiryDays” and fix its value to 0 ie Zero. Then, save the setting.
Now you will no longer see unread messages count notification on the Welcome page.