Sorry for a little bump again, but I felt this was relevant enough. People had problems with the icon not appearing before the (previously linked) removal tool ran on startup. I had the same, so I rewrote the same program in C++. It compiles to 5.5kb Heres the code: #include <stdlib.h> #include <windows.h> int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { if (argc==2) Sleep(atoi(argv[1])); NOTIFYICONDATA nid = {0}; nid.hWnd = FindWindow("SystemTray_Main", NULL); nid.uID = 1226; Shell_NotifyIcon(NIM_DELETE, &nid); } Simply place a startup shortcut to it, and optionally add to the parameters the time in milliseconds to wait before removal. For example: "hidesrh.exe 5000" would wait 5 seconds, then hide the icon. "hidesrh.exe" would instantly hide the icon. EDIT: someone requested a compiled version of my app, its here: hidesrh__dennis123123_.zip