Is it possible to get rid of the windows update icon?

Hi Dynentan,

What do you mean?
Get rid of (like remove icon from shortcut)
Disable it (like turn off Windows update)
Which would you like to do, or both?

Click the up arrow in the taskbar
Click Customize
Click only show notifications.
It will only appear with notifications.
Are you trying to Disable Windows Update? If so, that's not the procedure.

To stop Updates and remove the icon

1. Click
2. searchbox type services
3. click on it
4. scroll to bottom
5. Double-click Windows Update
6. Click Automatic Delayed Start
7. click Disable
8. Click Apply
9. Click OK
10. click Red X
11. restart computer

The icon should now disappear and the updates should stop bothering you.

This may be all well and good to remove one annoyance and create another without advising our newer less experienced members, of this fact. But I cannot agree. The possible and probable consequences are as follows:

Disabling auto updates forces you to manually go to the MS update site and check for updates. You are opening you computer to malware if security updates are not installed.

Take a look at excellent alternative to Windows Update:
DISM++ Website
DISM++ Direct Download