You can get rid of those pop-ups for good in Windows 7, or you can customise the desktop to show only those pop-ups that you deem worthy.įirst, visit the Action Centre by opening the Start menu and typing 'Action.' Click the first entry that appears, which should be Action Centre. When you're trying to concentrate on an urgent report or presentation, the last thing you need from your Windows desktop is a distracting pop-up from the system tray, telling you of some software update that can certainly wait.

It's one of those little tools that you'll wonder how Microsoft forgot. Its icon - a big red X - makes its intent obvious.

You can also pin it to your taskbar for even easier access. Just download it, unzip it in a folder of your choice, and then create a shortcut to the exe file on your desktop. Ntwind Software's free tool CloseAll does pretty much what its name implies: with one click, it closes every application running on your desktop. There is, but Microsoft didn't provide it. Getting back to a clean desktop within nothing running can involve dozens of clicks - and lots of wasted time. It's inevitable: use your Windows computer long enough, and sometime during the day you'll find you have a plethora of open applications.

Download ntwind closeall