Remove/Disable ATI 2018 Active Protection Tray Icon in Windows?

Don, wasn't my attention to offend, but to point out that we can't pick and choose every feature of a COTs software application to our liking and yes, I went very broad and basic in my analogy so yeah, I can see how it could ruffle some feathers, but I was trying to make a point.  Things like system tray icons are not always configurable in a number of applications, and being able to hide one and not have to look it all the time seems like a reasonable accommodation, especially when many other software applications behave in the same way.  In this case, Acronis has chosen to not make it removable and my guess is because if a user does decide to turn it off, or accidentally disables it, they can use it to simply turn it on again... making it easier for the majority of people in the long run.

You're more than welcome to submit in app feedback directly to Acronis with suggestions to improve their products and I would encourage you to do so.  Here in the user forum though, you're mostly just venting.  You're more than welcome to, but be prepared to have others vent back.

That said, in an effort to try and help in my unpaid,spare time, I did feel interested in the issue and was hoping to find a user-based alternative for everway9.  In my tests, the pre and post commands actually work pretty well.  It's a work-a-round though, not a fix so I leave it up to anyone interested to try it out, come up with something better, or submit feedback to Acronis directly until they see it as a necessary item to address.

As for user input on making the product better - you'll find that in a lot of applications (heck, Microsoft and Apple are probably the biggest ones to do it, yet the vast majority of the world still uses a Mac or a Windows PC).  Don't think for a second that the Acronis competitors don't do the same.  I have purchased, installed and use just about all of the commercial backup products at home to keep up to date, test and compare them.  Not a single one offers every feature or customization that I personally want, not a single one has ever "just worked" out of the box through the life of the product, not a single one doesn't receive updates from time to time and not a single one is 100% reliable.  If there was such a product, none of the other ones would exist anymore :)

I'd gladly take a product that cranks out an update and one right after to address issues that have been reported or discovered, than a product that ignores it and lets the user wait it out.  Acronis has become more responsive to the customer feedback and I'm glad they're releasing more frequent updates.  To each their own though - I do hope Acronis works well for you, but if not, they have a 30 day money back guarantee that you can take advantage of it's not the right product for you.

Bobbo. Is there a way to give a like, vote up/down etc peoples posts? I wanted to give a like to your last post. It was brill! :)

everway9,

Nope, this forum doesn't have an upvote or like option, but no worries.  I appreciate the gesture though.  As long as I'm able to help someone every now and then, that's enough for me.

I can't , for the life of me, figure out why Acronis would add something like ransomware to a world class application like their True Image Backup.  There are other companies that do just that and are noticed by the communities for that.  Acronis ransomware software should be a separate product and sold as such.  When I want a world class backup product, I want ONLY that. I wind up turning off the other nonsense software.

I don't think it's ransomware is it? I think it's a good optional extra. Ok I don't use it but it is a useful extra feature which can be disabled easily. 

As far as the tray icon goes I've decided I'm not going to bother trying to find a way to disable it. There's no easy way to do it. Anyway, the icon being there tells me that ATI is running in the background even though AAP itself is disabled. 

The truth is that I've actually got used to it being there now. :D

I still think that developers should always give the end user the ability to disable tray icons. It should always be the customers choice whether to have tray icons showing or not.

By the way.... Acronis replied to my support ticket. They didn't have a clue what I was trying to say or do. I was very detailed in my message and specifically said that I know how to hide it but also want to disable it. But they just gave me a link to visit which shows how to disable AAP and another link for how to hide the notification tray icon. 

I'd like to say a big thank you everybody for posting. It's a good forum this, with good people who are very helpful and I appreciate you taking the time to help out. ;)

Keep us posted as I will check back to see if you get any help.

As Steve Smith said.....  "Please open a Support Case for this requirement to be able to control the presence of the AAP icon, then it will at least get registered as a change request to be considered".

I'm going to suggest to them that they make it so that there are two seperate tray icons. One for AAP and the other for ATI. And that both have the option to disable them. And that the tray icon settings are within the Acronis settings themselves. Like what you get with a laptop touchpad. There is usually an option within the touchpad settings where you can choose whether to enable or disable the tray icon. They also have a option to have an animated icon or static one. :)

I love having icons that won't leave my notification tray unless I reboot. Icons like feedback sent failed job (that only opens Acronis when you click on it, not telling you what failed), and the disabled AAP icons. Consider it a feature. :-)

Unfortunately, won't be a feature I'll be looking for when the time comes to renew my subscription. 

Want to add my voice that I find it completely unacceptable that Acronis added this unrelated feature and does not give the option to turn it off. It feels too much like spyware now and certainly it is bloatware. Useless icons in the tray are super annoying as they clearly indicate that *something* is running but won't let you remove it.

I've been a customer of Acronis for a VERY long time now and over the years I've seen them make serious marketing mistakes like this.

As I did when they ruined the server product from v9 to a web-based fiasco in v11, I'll be removing this version and wait until they get it.  Unfortunately, this is the only option as, clearly, there's enough of a dissention now that they could have fixed this by now.

Goodbye Acronis. Let me know if you return to your roots in 2019 and I'll look into purchasing again.

Good news.  In TI 2019 there is a check box in the "Active Protection" tab that if you uncheck, the icon in the tray goes away!  wooohoooo!

Mark Corrigan wrote:

Good news.  In TI 2019 there is a check box in the "Active Protection" tab that if you uncheck, the icon in the tray goes away!  wooohoooo!

 They listened to us. ??

Hi all. 🙂

I've upgraded to True Image 2020. Unless anyone knows otherwise it appears that Acronis have not included 'in application' options in 2020 to disable the system tray icons in Windows.

I might not have looked carefully enough but  so far I haven't seen any options for the tray icons. The 'Backup Monitor/Current Operation Progress' icon, the 'Active Protection' icon and the (new in 2020 version) 'Notification Center' icon.

However, I haven't actually seen the Active Protection icon as yet in 2020. I had it disabled in ATI2019 so maybe that setting from 2019 has somehow carried over/implemented itself in the new 2020 version. Or maybe.... have Acronis decided not to include that particular icon in the new version?

Anyhow... Acronis, please can we have options to disable the tray icons in 2020? And again.... as with 2019... hiding the icons using Windows own taskbar notification settings is not an option, well not for me anyway.

Otherwise... great job, everything else seems to be functioning just fine. (so far, at least for me anyway) 👍

If I've missed something please let me know.

Thanks. 🙂

Don't you hate it when they screw around and drop an option that they implemented, by popular demand, in a previous version.

There is no AAP icon in the system tray with ATI 2020 as it has been replaced by a new icon to show backup tasks status and other messages, but with no controls for turning on/off AAP as was available in the previous icon.

If you still do not want to see the new ATI icon, then you need to end the TrueImageMonitor.exe process in Windows Task Manager, then disable it from starting automatically in the Task Manager Start-up list where it is shown simply as 'Acronis True Image 2020' - you can confirm you are disabling the correct item by right-clicking on the entry and then on Open file location.

Mark Corrigan wrote:

Don't you hate it when they screw around and drop an option that they implemented, by popular demand, in a previous version.

HaHa... indeedy. :)

Steve Smith wrote:

There is no AAP icon in the system tray with ATI 2020 as it has been replaced by a new icon to show backup tasks status and other messages, but with no controls for turning on/off AAP as was available in the previous icon.

If you still do not want to see the new ATI icon, then you need to end the TrueImageMonitor.exe process in Windows Task Manager, then disable it from starting automatically in the Task Manager Start-up list where it is shown simply as 'Acronis True Image 2020' - you can confirm you are disabling the correct item by right-clicking on the entry and then on Open file location.

Hiya Steve. :)

Thanks for posting.

Yeah. I'm sorry Steve, I failed to mention that I'd already tried that. The only problem with that is it also disables the current operations progress icon. The square blue & white icon that shows the percentage completed and how much time remains when you hover the mouse cursor over it. Well it did in ATI2019 anyway, that info no longer appears for me when I hover the mouse cursor over the same icon in ATI2020.

I'm not quite sure what the point of the new 'Tray Notification Centre' icon is. The pop out panel appears to show the same info as the 'Activity' tab shows in the app itself. Also I haven't yet found an option to clear the notifications from the Notification Centre. It would'nt be a problem though if it had some form of customisation. I can't knock them for trying new things, but it just feels like the notification centre has been added purely for an aestheic purpose so at least something looks new, because apart from that there doesn't seem to be any visible new features. But It doesn't have to look new though, it's what's under the hood that matters. Or maybe I'm missing the point entirely. :/

I'm rambling on, again.:)

everyway9, on the ATI 2020 forum (beta and release) there has been a lot of discussion about this change in the tray icon operations. I don't think I've seen it praised yet, so hopefully there will be some rethink there. Also, the response of seeing backup progress when hovering the mouse over the activity icon is not there and has been noted in some postings.

I suggest you provide feedback through the application for these issues to let Acronis know how you feel.

Hello everway9,

> percentage completed and how much time remains when you hover the mouse cursor over it. Well it did in ATI2019 anyway, that info no longer appears for me when I hover the mouse cursor over the same icon in ATI2020.

This issue has been reported to the RnD, fix is in progress

> I'm not quite sure what the point of the new 'Tray Notification Centre' icon is. The pop out panel appears to show the same info as the 'Activity' tab shows in the app itself. 

This feature is aimed at providing a fast aggregated overview on the protection status and showing missed tray notification for the user to react in time. The individual tray icons were removed, since their information became part of the Tray Notification center. 

BrunoC wrote:

everyway9, on the ATI 2020 forum (beta and release) there has been a lot of discussion about this change in the tray icon operations. I don't think I've seen it praised yet, so hopefully there will be some rethink there. Also, the response of seeing backup progress when hovering the mouse over the activity icon is not there and has been noted in some postings.

I suggest you provide feedback through the application for these issues to let Acronis know how you feel.

Hiya @BrunoC :)

Thanks for your post.

It's been a while since my last post. Between then and now (as you probably know by now) Acronis released an update (v21400, aka Update 1) which has addressed numerous issues including making the current operation percentage show up when you hover the mouse over the blue icon. And they have also added an option to clear items from the Tray Notification Center. Unfortunately an option to disable the tray icon(s) has not been added, yet. Hopefully they might do that at a later date. And maybe even the option to disable the notification center altogether. :D

But Thank You Acronis!. Much better now :)

Hi @Ekaterina. :)

Thank you very much for your post too.

Ekaterina wrote:

This feature is aimed at providing a fast aggregated overview on the protection status and showing missed tray notification for the user to react in time. The individual tray icons were removed, since their information became part of the Tray Notification center. 

Ah ha, I see. Thanks again. :)

It's quite annoying, this icon. It seems especially strange to add a common notification centre just for Acronis in the 2020 version, when Windows 10 has one for all programs to use.