The Windows 10 Action Center provides quick access to settings and notifications and is generally quite handy. However, those who have disabled notifications or are looking for a barebones experience may be wondering if they can disable the Action Center in Windows 10 entirely.
Though the Action Center has improved over the years, some just find it visually unappealing, don't like the notification nagging, or hate the space it takes on their taskbar. The good news is that you can enable and disable the Action Center in Windows 10 via the Group Policy Editor or a single registry tweak.
Disabling the Notifications Center by deactivating the Action Center
Naturally, when you turn off Action Center in Windows 10 you're sacrificing your ability to consult notifications. As a result, you could miss emails, low storage notifications, virus detections, and more if you aren't at the PC when the notification pops up. That said, the merit of Windows over macOS is its customization, so we're going to show you how to do it anyway.
Windows 10: Disable or Enable the Action Center via Group Policy
Those on Windows 10 Pro or higher don't need to use the registry to turn off Action Center. Instead, they can use the Group Policy editor, which lets you quickly make changes that Microsoft knows are safe.
- Open the Group Policy Editor
Press “Windows + R”, type “gpedit.msc”, and press “OK”.
- Navigate to “Start Menu and Taskbar”
You can find Start Menu and Taskbar policies by navigating to “User Configuration > Administrative Templates” in the left panel.
- Open the Policy Editor
Under Start Menu and Taskbar, scroll down until you see an entry named “Remove Notifications and Action Center”. Double click it.
- Enable or Disable the Windows 10 Action Center
In the editing Window, toggle “Remove Notifications and Action Center” to “Enabled” or “Disabled”. Press “OK”. Restart your PC for the changes to take effect.
Enable or Disable Action Center in Windows 10 via Regedit
If you don't have Windows 10 Pro, you can turn off Action Center via the Registry Editor, with similar steps to re-enable it.
- Open Registry Editor
Press “Windows + R” and type “Regedit”. Press “OK”.
- Go to the Explorer key
Navigate the to the Explorer key via the left sidebar or by pasting the following into your Registry Editor search bar:Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
- Create a new DWORD
Right-click the empty space in the Explorer folder and select “New>DWORD (32-bit) Value”. Name it “DisableActionCenter”.
- Disable or Enable the Windows 10 Action Center
Double-click on the new DWORD to edit it. Change the “Value data” to “1” to disable the Action Center or “0” to disable it. Click “OK”. Restart your PC so the changes can take effect.
