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

If you are running Windows 10, got to Settings->Personalization->Taskbar and under Notification Area, click on Select which icons appear on the taskbar to turn it off. Hope that helps.

Hi. :) 

Thanks for posting.

I'm sorry as I forgot to mention that.

Even when the acronis icon is turned off in the taskbar settings it's still there... lurking. :)

If you want to completely disable AAP then you need to do two things here:

1. Turn off Active Protection using the System Tray icon 
2. Stop and then Disable the Active Protection Service via the Services.msc control panel.
3. Restart the computer to fully effect the change and confirm AAP is no longer active.

Hi Steve. :)

Again I have overlooked the obvious.

Thanks for reminding me about services. I'll give that a go and get back to you.

You know.. I thought that would have disabled the icon. But guess what? ....... NO! :D  I disabled the service and restarted PC.

It looks like the only way to get rid of it is going to by registry editing.  

Quick question: If the AAP Service is Disabled and showing as such, and the System Tray icon offers you the option of Turn on AAP, then all that is left is the icon itself which you should be able to simply hide using the normal Windows options for this.

Yes. I understand that, but as I said in my second post... "Even when the acronis icon is turned off in the taskbar settings it's still there... lurking."

Sorry, but I am not sure that I understand your concern about the icon being present and why you regard it as 'lurking'?

The icon is there purely to provide a method to re-enable Acronis Active Protection if your change your mind about not using it.  

If you have Disabled the AAP Service and Turned off AAP via the Icon, then it is no doing anything else.

If you are still not convinced, then I would recommend opening a Support Case directly with Acronis and seeking a definitive statement on this question. 

I doubt that Acronis will provide any means of permanently removing the icon, especially as you can hide it from the taskbar / system tray quite easily, and this is now an integral part of the application.  Acronis have been asked by other users to provide a more granular installation method for ATI, i.e. to allow users to select which features / functions get installed - and have stated very clearly that they will not do this - it is everything or nothing!

It's ok. It's not a massive issue really. It if has to stay then it will. Just that with the majority of all notification tray icons there is a way to disable them. I'm just a fussy bugger with OCD. :D But I really appreciate you taking the time to assist. Thanks. :)

everway9, I understand what you are saying. The AP service is disabled and you will not (cannot) start it from the icon so why should the icon be there?

I would suggest you might try disabling the automatic startup of TrueImageMonitor.exe, which I believe is what is responsible for the notifications. Without testing it myself, I am guessing it may get rid of the icon. A side effect may be that you will not see the icon notification when a backup task is run.

Hi Bruno. :)

Thanks for posting. 

That's another idea yeah. But i'd really like it if software designers would give the end user a choice whether to have an icon show or not. If they all did whst acronis has done here then we'd all have no room left on our taskbars. :D

So when I turn off icons using the Windows settings, all the turned off icons are hidden yet accessible with a single "Show hidden icons" icon. Is this not what happens with you? Is that what you mean by "lurking"?

Open Task Manager and select the more details arrow. Select the Startup tab. Highlight the "Acronis True Image 2018" entry and click the Disable button. You should no longer see the system tray icon after a reboot.

Quote: So when I turn off icons using the Windows settings, all the turned off icons are hidden yet accessible with a single "Show hidden icons" icon. Is this not what happens with you? Is that what you mean by "lurking"?

If I click 'Show hidden icons' the AAP icon is still there. Sorry for the confusion. I'm wanting to get rid of it altogether. :)

Hi Mustang. :)

Thanks for your input. But I'd like not to stop ATI from running on boot. 

It's ok everyone. I really do appreciate you all trying to help. But please don't be wasting any more of your valuable time trying to help a fussy old man like me with something as unimportant as a tray icon. (unless you really want to :) ) I'll find a way to disable it eventually. Then I'll try and remember to post the method back here.

Thanks again. ;)

The instructions I gave you will not stop all of True Image from starting at boot. It will only stop the tray icon!

Oh... ok. Thanks Mustang. I'll give it a go. :)

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Sven, welcome to these User Forums.

See KB 60190: Acronis True Image 2018: how to disable Active Protection in Windows which Acronis has published to help users like yourself who what to not use this feature of the product.

If you want to communicate your comments to Acronis, then please submit Feedback using the tool provided in the GUI or else open a Support Case for this purpose.

Hi Steve.

It is the tray icon we want to disable. Disabling Active Protection does not get rid of the tray icon. 

I have 2 computers running windows 7 pro. One is 32bit and one is 64bit. When I turn off the ransomware protection on the 32 bit desktop the icon goes away in the system tray.  On the 64 bit laptop, it grays out and you can't get rid of it even stopping the service.  I take it your machine is 64 bit everway9?

Did you do a full reboot after following the steps shown in the KB document?

Once AAP has been disabled, then you can hide the icon using the normal Windows System Tray notification settings.

Yes Mark. Mine is 64 bit Win 10. 

Steve, the only way to hide the icon using the Windows options is to disable always show all icons. Many notification tray icons have an option to hide or disable them. Unfortunately the Acronis active protection doesn't. Somewhere in the registry there will be a key which controls the AAP icons behaviour. Even if the Windows settings are set to always show all icons, individual icons can still be hidden. This is what I'd like to be able to do. I always have the 'always show all icons' setting turned on. This way I can see all active icons without having to click to expand. This may be confusing to some but this is the way I like it. The 'inactive' AAP icon takes up space another 'active" icon could be using instead.

Anyway... I'm now giving up trying to explain myself. If anyone can tell me where the registry key is for the AAP tray icon then that'd be great. :)

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.

Will do. Thanks Steve. :)

The only thing I did on the 32bit desktop was to disable the protection. Nothing else and the icon disappeared from the tray.  I didn't do it from the icon, I opened up ATI 2018 and went to "Active Protection" and clicked the button to off. The icon grayed out and on the next reboot the icon was gone.

The status of the icon in the tray of the 32bit desktop after looking at the customize in the tray is "only show notifications".

Yeah. I have disabled AAP on my PC 64bit W10 and the AAP icon is grey, indicating that Acronis active protection is inactive. I know it's inactive so I don't need the icon to tell me. :D

On  my Windows 10 Pro Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Notification area does show the ability to turn off the Acronis icon. I do set to always show all icons, but when I turned that off I could remove the Acronis icon from the display.

everway9,, I know what you mean.  It drove me crazy too.  Many of my programs let you check a box in the settings to either show the icon or not.  I wish Acronis would do that. 

Sorry about this guys but the icon has returned on my 32bit machine and I can't get rid of it. I don't know what I did or didn't do but both of my systems have the grayed out icon.  I hope everyway9 succeeds in his support case.  

If you want the icon removed, stop the trueimagemonitor.exe which starts automatically with Acronis.  I'm not sure how it's launched by Acronis as I don't see it running until after I open Acronis, it's not running as a scheduled task, and it doesn't appear to be included in the default startup folders for the user or all uses.  Regardless, it is what's putting the icon there and I've verified that disabling trueimagemonitor.exe from task manager does remove the icon in the Windows system tray and if you launch TrueImageMonitor.exe manually, it puts the icon back again.  

C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImageMonitor.exe

However, it did start up automatically again after reboot so needs to be permanently disabled if you want the icon gone for good.

To do this...

copy this into a .txt file and change the extension from .txt to .bat

@echo off

taskkill /F /IM "TrueImageMonitor.exe" > NUL 2>&1

then copy that .bat file (name it whatever you want, but keep the extension as .bat) to 

%programdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp

(that is for all computer users)

or (not both)

%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

(that is for the logged on users profile only)

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Personally, I don't find it impacts anything to not have it running, but there's always the possibility you may not see backup tasks as they're running either.   Here is an OLD post that led me to this sometime ago which was incorporated into the MVP kill all script on our MVP Google Drive.

If you don't want TrueImageMonitor.exe to run, open up the Task Manager, select the Startup tab and then disable the entry marked "Acronis True Image 2018".

I'd agree - that was my thought, but didn't realize it was listed as "Acronis True Image Home" there as I was looking for startup manager :)

Clicking on the option to locate the file verifies it does reference the trueimagemonitor.exe - thanks!

The .bat file works fine too, but taskmanger is the easiest method.

Hi Bobbo.

Very usefull info thank you.

However, I need ATI running constantly with all the monitors etc... but not AAP. :) 

Do you you have any idea where the registry entry for the AAP tray icon could be?

I just need pointing in the right direction and then I don't mind experimenting from there. I have a spare PC with ATI 2018 that doesn't need backing up so it doesn't matter if I break it. :D

Not that I'm aware - I don't like to muck in the registry unless as a last resort since I don't know all the ins and outs of what Acronis calls on for everything. 

Disabling that service with the .bat file or from "startup" tab in task manager will still allow scheduled tasks to run (scheduled backups you've configured) in the background.  Plus, you  can still launch Acronis True Image from the desktop to see what its doing at any given time if you want to check on it. 

The downside of disabling that feature is that you aren't likely to see a backup running in the taskbar with since that program seems to be used for the tray icon for AAP and for the tray icon when a backup task is running.

I know I am so very fussy and probably also very annoying, but... I like to have the backup task icon showing. ;)

Anyway... I have finally submitted a support request and I shall update here when I've had a reply.

I also see what you mean about the backup task icon being tied in with the AAP icon. It could be a tricky one this. :)

I would venture to say that there is no registry entry to control the AAP icon in the system tray (and I've looked). I suspect it is totally handled by TrueImageMonitor.exe.

If you choose to not run TrueImageMonitor to avoid the AAP tray icon, you will not see tray icons when a backup task runs.

If you really want to see the backups run in the tray without AAP, you might try starting the TrueImageMonitor.exe in a pre-command to your backup, and kill it in the post-command. I can't guarantee it would work, and I'm not going to try it out, but if someone else cares to, please report the results.

Meanwhile, a feature request to turn off the AAP icon through the UI is appropriate. In fact, all notification options should be handled through the UI.

Thanks everyone for helping out. I really appreciate you taking the time to post. :)

There is another downside to disabling TrueImageMonitor.exe. If you want to cancel a running backup, you'll find the Cancel button doesn't work. At least that's the way it was in earlier versions of TI. I haven't experimented with this in TI2018, but I would expect it to act like earlier versions.

Couldn't you just cntl/alt/delete and kill the process to stop the backup?

Tried that before and it messed up the list of backups. Similar to what happened when I had a powercut. :D

I agree that it's annoying to have that icon there when you aren't using the product.  I run Win7 Pro and when I customise the taskbar icons to hide the icon, it mirrors the selection to the TrueImage icon that I want to keep.  It's like a pushy neighbor that's always in your face reminding you he's there if you need someone to help you move.

I see that malwarebytes has also recently decided that it needs an icon in my system tray even though it only runs once a month.  Acronis and AVG stick a shortcut on my desktop every time they update and I don't want one.  Every one thinks they know what's best for me.

Don,

Sounds like life is against you, I bet you hate that Windows start button that Microsoft forces on you and that annoying task bar.  Come on, apps are designed with the "majority" of customers in mind (80/20 rule) and there are going to be certain settings outside of our control to some extent.  

I get the frustration since it's not as customizable as you'd like, but it's not the end of the world and this is not unique to Acronis.  You won't even see the icon if you have it set to "off" in Settings >> Personalization >> Taskbar >> Notification Area >> Turn System Icons on or off and set it to off.  Yeah, it will still be there as  "hidden" icon when you click "show hidden icons", but it's not like you have to look at it all the time. I've got several of these in mine from all types of software (ccleaner, malwarebytes, HD Sentinel, Chrome, etc.)  Some can be removed, others can't, but you don't see them unless you go to the "show hidden icons" menu.

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Everway9, I tested Bruno's suggestion to use a pre and post command in the backup task.  It actually works - although mileage may vary if you have opened Acronis before and the icon may be present before it kicks off.  You can test it yourself with the attached pre and post command files (have to change them from .txt to .bat first and then point the backup job task to them.

**EDIT - the forum renamed the files when uploaded.... the first is the PRE command (432602-141047) the second is the POST command (432602-141048).  Name them whatever you want, but make sure to change .txt to .bat if you want to test or use them.

This assumes you have stopped the TrueImageMonitor.exe from starting already using task manager / startup tab... and it would not be started.

Don't be a dick Bobbo.  I downloaded True Image 2018 three days ago.  Each day since then, it's given me a new and different build.  This does not assure me that the code is being thoroughly tested before being released.  These people apparently need our input to tell them what they screwed up.

I understand how people may feel but please lets keep this discussion a respectful one. :)

Bobbo. Thanks very much for taking the time to test. I really do appreciate it. However, as you say... the mileage will vary. And it's a bit too high. :)