Despite the Charms Bar being an annoyance on the Desktop, in Windows 8.1, Microsoft has only decided to allow users to disable the top left corner (also known as Switcher) and the top right corner, so when you point your mouse pointer to those corners, the Metro Charms Bars will not annoy you. However, the bottom right corner remains. If you find no use for the Charms Bar especially on the Desktop, you might be interested in disable that bottom right corner too.
In this article, we will look how to use settings in Windows 8.1 to disable active corners. Also, we will look at a workaround to disable the bottom right corner.
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As mentioned above, Windows 8.1 offers a native way to disable the top left corner and the top right corner. To disable them, right click on the taskbar and choose "Properties":
In the next window, switch to the navigation tab, and untick the following options:
- When I point to the upper-right corner, show the charms
- When I click the upper-left corner, switch between my recent apps.
This will disable the top left corner and the top right corner. But what about the bottom right corner?
You can use my app, Winaero Charms Bar Killer. You don't even need to configure any settings, it will kill the bottom right corner right after it starts.
This app can also kill the top left corner, the top right corner and the bottom right corner in Windows 8.1 and Windows 8. This can be handy for Windows 8 users too since they do not have options to disable those active corners. Right click on the tray icon to change application options and behavior. You can change the following settings:
- Run at startup - will run the application every time Windows starts.
- Hide tray icon - will hide the tray icon of application. The application will remember this setting and will not show the tray icon even when you restart it. To show it again, run Winaero Charms Bar Killer once again.
- Kill Charms Bar - will disable the top right corner and the bottom right corner in Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.
- Kill Top Left Corner - will disable the top left corner (switcher).
Please note: after you have disabled these active corners, exit the application and restart the Explorer shell to get them back!
Winaero Charms Bar Killer supports the following OS:
- Windows 8.1 x86
- Windows 8.1 x64
- Windows 8 x86
- Windows 8 x64
No separate version for x64 is required, the application works well on both versions.
Download the app from here: Winaero Charms Bar Killer
Note: Charms Bar Killer only disables the charms for the mouse hot corners. To disable the charms that get activated by touchpad edge swipes, see this article.
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Hi, Sergey. Thanks for the program to disable the charms bar, which I have installed on Win 8.1. The charms bar still appears at random when I move the mouse from the middle of the right hand side, although the corners seem to have been disabled. Is this correct? If so, is there any way to disable the charms bar completely?
Tried it on my 8.1 too and charms bar still appears. Even editing the registry doesn’t work. I’m using a 64bit 8.1.
Anyone has a solution for this? Please help..
the problem is with the edge swipe feature, you can disable that, my side bar popped up any time i moved the cursor to the left even when it was in the center of the page.
Any way yet to Disable/Remove/Unitstall or whatever its called to totally Dump Metro Apps Suite (Program, File, or whatever its called) off of Windows 8.1 and to never ever see that &^%$ screen again??? Thanks.
Most apps can be removed. See https://winaero.com/blog/how-to-remove-all-bundled-modern-apps-from-your-user-account-in-windows-8/. The rest can be turned off by changing Default Programs from Control Panel.
Well, this does NOT kill the touch Edge swipe to bring charms.
Neither does it the SkipeMetroSuite.exe
It worked in Windows 8, not working anymore in 8.1.
Any real hint on disabling Edge swipe charms?
Thank you
Yes, this is how you can disable the edge swipes: How to disable Metro edge swipes
The charms are the most annoying things I have ever dealt with. I really hate windows 8. Wish I had never bought this computer. Would take my old one over this hot mess any day. If anyone knows how to disable the charms, would love to know. Also my screen randomly move from one to another. I don’t know what is causing this.
hello creater of this app, it doesnt work. the annoying charms bar and time keep popping up. it really did absolutely nothing :(
Then disable them using the instructions in this article: https://winaero.com/blog/how-to-disable-metro-edge-swipes-and-touch-charm-gestures-for-trackpads-touchpads-in-windows-8-1-and-windows-8/
All of these tutorials are about disabling the Charms bar from a touchpad or a trackpad… how do I just disable them completely? I’ve got a Surface Pro 3 so there is no separate touchpad… the device itself is a touchscreen. I want to disable the edge swipe that brings up the Charms bar. How do I disable that?
Please see https://winaero.com/blog/how-to-disable-metro-edge-swipes-and-touch-charm-gestures-for-trackpads-touchpads-in-windows-8-1-and-windows-8/
Unfortunately “drag to close” can’t be disabled and I constantly drag my empty desktop when the cursor gets too close to the top of the screen. It’s so annoying and I’m on a PC just using windows 8.1 as Windows 7. I have no metro apps installed and aren’t going to.
It can be disabled, but not with OS options. It requires coding
I have done it all and nothing worked a guyy named John Bird told me to go to control panel find the mouse section or synapses and and uncheck the edge swap it worked for me
After following the steps above you will want to visit your control panel and then find your touch pad software and disable swiping from the edge otherwise the charm bar will never stop. If you use a laptop with a touch pad look for the settings of the Synaptic Touch pad and you will see swiping from the side as a sort of gesture. I have read several hundreds posts thus far that all suggest that, “I did everything but this firkin thing keeps coming back!”
And that will only work if your Touchpad software has the option to disable edge swipes. The Synaptics version I have doesn’t have that option. I read that some people were able to resolve it by rolling back the driver, but I couldn’t find a previous version that worked for me. Ditto Elantech drivers. And Microsoft generic drivers. I’m going to slowly migrate to Linux Mint. Windows and its affiliates are more trouble than they’re worth. And Apple is no better.
Well, the right moment to start Linux Mint coverage in Winaero blog.
We plan to start from the next week.
It doesn’t work if you have multiple monitor.
Charms are killed for monitor 1, but not monitor two. This is pretty annoying because the whole reason I downloaded this fix is to prevent the charms bar from popping up and preventing me from switching my cursor from one monitor to the other.
Charms Bar killer does not work. This abomination still attacks me every time I try and do anything useful on right side of screen.
This thread is useless. Stop trying to micromanage the IE settings
Download Classic Shell – http://www.classicshell.net/
Go to Windows 8.1 Settings tab
Select “Disable Active Corners” – All
Problem solved.
Yep, the classic shell app also can be used to disable the charms bar.
Even Classic Shell doesn’t work on my laptop. Nothing works at destroying this menace. I swear I am finished with Microsoft now and am buying a Macbook next year.
I managed to completely disable this annoyance by using Start8 software, although it’s not free.
Amazing… this didn’t work 100%, charms bar still appears sometimes :(
Dude Wow Awesome & Thanks
Not Complaining about Windows But U have potentially save me AT Least 1 hour an week of Distractions with Bills Equipment Use SO im Way more Productive on Bill Gates Software UR Too AWESOME THANKS SO MUCH
Bills people did not make me Proud to say i use Windows for Primary Software OS