Show/hide Windows Security notification icon in Windows 10

When it comes to protect your Windows 10 operating system, Microsoft Defender or Windows Security is the best option available. It comes pre-installed as UWP app with Windows 10 and is free to use. This UWP app offers a nice user friendly UI and its quite easy to use. It offers real-time protection to your Windows 10 system from viruses, malware, trojan, ransomware etc. When you’re using Microsoft Defender as primary AV, it will show the app status icon on taskbar. In this article, we’ll see how to show/hide Windows Security notification icon in Windows 10.

Below screenshot shows Windows Security notification icon on taskbar of a Windows 10 system.

Windows Security notification icon in Windows 10

See, there could be anonymous reasons why you want to hide that notification icon. There are couple of ways you can use to accomplish this. Most easiest ways are mentioned below.

Page Contents

Show/hide Windows Security notification icon in Windows 10

Method 1 – Using Settings app

1. Right click on the taskbar and select Taskbar settings.

Windows Security notification icon in Windows 10

2. This will open taskbar settings inside the Settings app. In the right pane of that window, scroll down and locate Select which icons appear on the taskbar link.

Windows Security notification icon in Windows 10

3. In the Select which icons appear on the taskbar screen, you can turn On or Off the Windows Security notification icon. By default, it is On.

Windows Security notification icon in Windows 10

Whatever selection you made, your settings should be saved and applied immediately.

Method 2 – Using Registry

This method works in only Windows 10 Version 1809 or later.

Registry Disclaimer: We recommended you to create a System Restore point first, if you’re not familiar with registry editing.

1. Run regedit command to open Registry Editor.

2. In Registry Editor window, go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft

Windows Security notification icon in Windows 10

3. Create a new registry subkey to Microsoft with name Windows Defender Security Center. Then create next subkey to Windows Defender Security Center and name it as Systray. In the right pane of Systray, create new registry DWORD (REG_DWORD) named HideSystray.

4. Set HideSystray to Value data 1 to hide Windows Security notification icon. If you delete or set it to 0, the Windows Security notification icon will be shown.

5. Close Registry Editor and restart your system.

That’s it!