How can I remove Favorites toolar in IE8?

[Sondra]

I'm using Vista x64 SP2

Favorites shows up on the menu bar, which is fine. It also has its own toolbar, which is unnecessary, takes up space and irritatingly displays a history of browsed webpages. How can delete it?

 

[nickbits]

right click on an empty spot in the bar and uncheck

 

[Sondra]

I previously unclicked it but it won't go away. Is there another step I can use?

 

[M0RPH]

This is what it looks like after unchecking the favorites toolbar:

Does it really bother you that much to have the one little button next to your tabs?

In fact, right-click > customize > show only icons and you can remove the word Favorites... it'll just be a little star there.

 

[Sondra]

The things that bother me are:

The vertical space it takes up on the screen by adding a toolbar for something that's already in the menu bar--not a lot of space but I have several programs that could use the extra room.

It lists all the web pages I've visited until I delete them--only one more step, but I don't like when the computer controls me instead of my being able to make the decisions.

When I used IE8 before this installation, this never happened. Also, I don't use tabs. So even if I only had a star--or could get rid of the star but not the bar--it wouldn't solve the other irritations.

 

[M0RPH]

Well it would only take a row if you don't use tabs. I'm not sure why anyone would resist to using tabs nowadays, that's very unusual... but to each their own. If you need a browser that's completely customizable then you should use FireFox.

As for the list of sites you visited, I assume you're talking about History? All browsers keep a history... why would you need to delete them? If you're worried about someone seeing which sites you visited, then use the InPrivate Browsing feature of IE8.

 

[bruceb]

HKEY_CURRENT_USERS\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\Explorer

Create a DWORD valuename SpecifyDefaultButtons and set its value to 1. This has to be added once followed by tweaks as below.

Creating a DWORD valuename (names as below) and setting its value to 2 will hide the corresponding toolbar items. For showing the items, you will either require to change values to 1 or delete the valuename.


Value Descriptioon

Btn_Favorites Hide Favorites button

All of this is from this web site:

http://jalaj.net/2007/01/01/tweaking-registry-for-internet-explorer/

 

[Sondra]

bruceb, thanks for the suggestion, but it's not only the button I want to remove. I want the toolbar it's on gone as well. If I remove the only button, would the toolbar disappear?

If I can't get it out, maybe I'll try Opera.

 

[bruceb]

The Favorites toolbar can be disabled in View, Toolbars, uncheck Favorites, then check Lock The Toolbars ... the Favorites button will still be on the Commands Bar

 

[Sondra]

Something must be wrong because unchecking Favorites in View doesn't change anything. Probably when there's an update I can make changes.

 

[LS]

Here is a reg file that will do what you want.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbars\Restrictions]
"NoCommandBar"=dword:00000001