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August 31, 2006
Diskeeper Tips and Tricks: System Status Icon Control
Below I'll present some "undocumented" registry qualifiers that control the behavior of the Diskeeper System Status icon (System Tray/SysTray). The need to make these changes is exceptionally rare, though a few of our very large customers have implemented this for specific company purposes. A modified form was previously available in Diskeeper 9.0 as well (though the below steps will not work on Diskeeper 9.0).
We've had very little requests to modify this feature in any way, which is why you don't see a user interface button in the product to modify behaviors. I'm providing the information here as a "trick" rather than a "tip".
There are 3 levels of control for the Diskeeper 10.0 System Status Icon. They are all related to control for the non-administrative user. System Administrators always have full control.
Please note that because this is done via the registry please follow all the usual precautions. I'm also not going to walk through all the steps as to how to make the changes. If you're reading a blog on a file system performance vendor's website, I'm pretty sure you already know what you're doing!
The procedure takes less than a minute. All you need to do is create a new DWORD value and assign the appropriate decimal value.
Name: UserIconLevel
Type: DWORD value
Location: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Diskeeper Corporation\Diskeeper
Default value: 2
Possible values:
2 = non-admin user can bump schedules via the icon
1 = non-admin user has no control via, but icon is visible
0 = icon is not visible to the non-admin user
If no value is present [default], then the code will behave as if 2 is the value.
All the usual network-wide registry editing techniques can be used if you need to make broad scale changes. E.g. you can use a batch file with "reg add" and deploy via GPO scripts or Sitekeeper (Sitekeeper can also deploy .reg files).
While I'm not personally a fan of apps cluttering the tray, I do like the fact that Diskeeper 10's icon (only visible when actually defragmenting) offers a "total fragments eliminated" incrementing calculation when hovering over it. That's all I ever see of Diskeeper on my production systems (Set It and - but for the SysTray icon info - Forget It).
Posted by Michael at August 31, 2006 11:02 PM
Comments
Hello -
I just purchased a ThinkPad and it shipped with Diskeeper Lite v541. I would like to disable the tray icon, is there a way?
Does the Home 2007 version also present a non-removable tray icon?
Thanks,
Todd
Posted by: Todd at September 14, 2007 04:56 AM
Hi Todd,
Unless you log in as a non-Admin, the icon will be visible in that version.
Thanks to enhancements in resource usage and the elimination of scheduling, the icon in Diskeeper 2007 has been removed.
-Michael
Posted by: Michael at October 1, 2007 08:00 PM
I am using Diskeeper Home 9.0.545.0 and can't find an option to turn off the tray icon either. Am I just too blind?
Posted by: Andreas at October 10, 2007 06:19 PM
Hi Adreas,
No, you're not blind :-). The only way you can "disable" the icon is to make a change in the Windows Registry. The edits you need to make require creating new "values". If you are determined to remove the icon, and unless you're familiar with editing the Registry, I suggest you have a friend or relative help with the process.
-Michael
Posted by: Michael at October 15, 2007 07:25 PM
The simplest solution was to uninstall Diskeeper altogether. Version 9 came with my new Thinkpad, and though it seemed to do something useful and was maybe worth keeping, after struggling to get the icon out of my tray, I finally gave up. From the above discussion, I can see that it was hopeless to try. Frankly, I'd rather defrag my hard drive manually every now and then than have to have an extra icon cluttering my already-crowded system tray. Making a tray icon optional seems like a pretty basic feature for software to offer. One shouldn't have to buy an upgrade and then even play with the registry.
Posted by: alithia at November 17, 2007 08:48 PM
Hi Alithia,
I hear you. Please understand that Diskeeper 9 is 4 years old. We added the icon as our users requested this, with previous versions of Diskeeper (8.0 and older) reported to interfere with use of the system (impacting performance). When Diskeeper 9 was the current version we only had a small number of requests to remove the icon -otherwise we would have built this. Diskeeper 9 is now provided as a free, fully functioning software for Lenovo customers - as a service to make their PCs faster.
Today Diskeeper is far more technically advanced, and icons are no longer relevant to its operation as InvisiTasking solves the problem the icon was implemented to help with.
If you were to upgrade the software I should hope that it was for a "real" feature and not to get rid of some annoyance.
For the record, you can "customize" what icons appear in the system status tray by selecting the properties option for the taskbar.
Posted by: Michael at November 20, 2007 07:42 PM
I just bought a lenovo thinkpad and I am SHOCKED that I can't remove the tray icon. This is very bad form. I have supported and purchased diskeeper for my computers in the past. I'm going to uninstall it and consider not purchasing it for this computer. Not everyone wants the bottom of their screen taken over by unwanted icons. All other programs have an easily switched option to not display it in the tray. It is not smart to make people upset and force them to uninstall your product. BOOO!
Posted by: James Burkes at November 27, 2007 04:00 AM
Hi James,
I understand your comments on the icon. When Diskeeper 9 was the "new" product it was developed for system administrators on business PCs and we built the functionality for them.
We have since changed this design with newer Diskeeper releases.
Posted by: Michael at November 27, 2007 07:33 PM
Hello,
Heehe, I also just purchased a Lenovo T61. It has Diskeeper installed on it, and might be nice feature. But I also will not have my icon bar flooded with icons (currently 2 Diskeepr icons, one for engine running and another looking the same with a longer description text)
Is it possible to remove these icons?
I have tried for 20 minutes soon, and find no setting. The program will be uninstalled soon, if I don't find a solution. Will call Lenovo tomorrow :)
Sincerely
Jan
Posted by: Jan at March 30, 2008 05:21 PM
Add me to the list of frustrated unable-to-remove-the-diskeeper-icon-on-my-new-lenovo-taskbar users. ;)
Guess I will also uninstall diskeeper, especially since I have an X300 with an SSD and I'm not at all sure it needs to be defragmented (and, if that's correct, why diskeeper was preloaded).
Posted by: John at April 30, 2008 08:44 AM
Hi John,
We are working with Lenovo on the pre-installed software, though I would not expect changes for a bit.
The Diskeeper you have on the x300 is needed and has been specially tailored for that SSD. Lenovo's platform engineering group heavily tests every component they add to their computers.
Posted by: Michael at April 30, 2008 06:21 PM
Arrived at this post through Google, and based on this info it looks like we will be removing diskeeper from our internal lenovo images as well.
Posted by: Daran at June 25, 2008 10:31 AM
Hi Daran,
Please keep in mind that you can hide/alter access to the icon for non-administrative users. I understand that if your users have full priv's on their PCs, this may not be the design you are looking for. We did change this design in newer releases of Diskeeper (v9.0 was released in 2004), perhaps a newer version is an option for your managed systems?
Posted by: michael at July 1, 2008 12:27 AM
Same problems here too. Poor written software. No excuses. End of story! As I am on an office laptop. I won't risk playing with the registry.
Posted by: Dave at July 30, 2008 01:12 AM