Annoying Homegroup and Libraries desktop icons

I took the plunge and upgraded my Vista 64 to 7 RC. The upgrade process lasted over 6 hours (some 300GB stuff), but afterwards it has been working very smoothly.

What annoys me though, are 2 stubborn system icons on my desktop, Homegroup and Libraries. I don't use Homegroup and Libraries can be accessed via Start menu, so I want to get rid of these two icons, but they cannot be deleted as such.
Personalize-Change Desktop Icons doesn't seem to offer any solution for these 2 icons.

I did not have those desktop icons on earlier clean installs of Win7, only now after the massive Vista->7RC upgrade.

Is there any registry hack or other method to get rid of these icons?

Tia Uffe

Hello, Tia,

I know that it may be a bit late to provide an answer now, as it's been several months since you've asked this, but I'll provide an answer anyway because I just figured this out myself and someone else may run into the same issue.

I initially typed out the entire solution myself, but I then found a blog that probably explains this better than I can, so just click on this link to see the solution.

Hope this helps,
Vic

VicVicVic said:

Hello, Tia,

I know that it may be a bit late to provide an answer now, as it's been several months since you've asked this, but I'll provide an answer anyway because I just figured this out myself and someone else may run into the same issue.

I initially typed out the entire solution myself, but I then found a blog that probably explains this better than I can, so just click on this link to see the solution.

Hope this helps,
Vic

I did not find the same registry keys as are listed in the link above. Are they different from computer to computer?

I got rid of the homegroup entry in the explorer tree by stopping a couple of services related to homegroup. I didn't change the registry.

I haven't tried yet to get rid of libraries.

I never had libraries or homegroup icons on my desktop.

Sorry for the multiple posts. Since Windows 7 does not come with an email program, I have been trying to get a program to work. I have not seen most of the replies to my question. With your link, I was able to remove the two icons from my desktop.
Thanks

To remove the Homegroup icon off of the Desktop, follow the steps below.


1. First click on the Start Menu


2. Type the word “services” in the Search dialog and choose the listing with icon that looks like a gear next to it.


3. You should have your “Services (Local)” window open now listing all services on your computer, running or not.


4. Find HomeGroup Listener and HomeGroup Provider and do the following;


Double Click to open the Properties,


Find “Startup type:” on the “General” tab and change the selection to “Disabled” by clicking the drop-down

menu and selecting it,


Then find the “Service status:” and click on the “Stop” button,


Once the service has stopped, click “Apply” first and then the “OK” to complete the action,


Repeat these steps with “HomeGroup Provider” to stop both services.


The “HomeGroup” icon should now be removed from your Desktop.

looks like you have been a victim of malware. I got malware once, and it put those annoying icons on my desktop as well. your first prioriy is to download an antimalware program, and do a FULL scan of malware, to remove the infection, then to remove the icons as intructed by the previous post