[Win 10] Change Toast Notifications to Old Balloon Notifications

[Delta Pythagorean]

Do you dislike the look and/or feeling of the toast notification that Windows 10 gives? Well, I've got a solution.
First, let's start by saying that once you have changed these settings and have saved, you must restart your computer!
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's get started.

1. Press Windows+R and get the run menu, and type: gpedit.msc
   

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2. Next, run it and locate the following: User Configuration/Administrative Templates/Start Menu and Taskbar
   

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3. Then, find Disable showing balloon notifications as toasts. (You might have to sort the list to find it. Ctrl+F doesn't do anything.)
   
   Click Enable, Apply, and OK.

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4. After that, locate to the Notifications folder in the same location and find: Turn off toast notifications.
   
   Click Enable, Apply, and OK.

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5. Then close the window, make sure that you've saved all of your work in other applications, all your documents, text files, chats with others, etc, etc.

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6. Restart, open the programs you were using/want to use, and enjoy balloon TrayTips!

[RUNIE]

Moved thread.

[Noesis]

Hi Delta, FYI: The above method wont work in home versions of windows, as group policy editor is only available in pro (or higher) versions. Instead one would need to edit the registry by adding/changing the following:

location: HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
Key: EnableLegacyBalloonNotifications (dword32)
Value: 1 (enable) 0 (disable)

[Delta Pythagorean]

Hi Delta, FYI: [...]

I have the home version and it works fine. I could write a script to change the key's value.
I tested it fine on Pro and Home versions and it worked alright. I don't see how your's can work.

[Delta Pythagorean]

Moved thread.

My bad, forgot about this forum

[Noesis]

I have the home version and it works fine. I could write a script to change the key's value.
I tested it fine on Pro and Home versions and it worked alright. I don't see how your's can work.

Ok I'm curious.
How did you get gpedit.msc to run on a vanilla home version ?
I'm aware you can download workarounds to provide the functionality but without doing so, that particular msc plugin is apparently not meant to work in the home editions, and doesn't on my machine. (If it's run from the run menu it errors saying it can't find the file, and if it's located on the drive and run from there, I get an error saying "MMC cannot open the file ...\gpedit.msc. This may be because the file does not exist, is not an MMC console, or was created by a later version of MMC. This may also be because you do not have sufficient access rights to the file.")

Also you mention you could write a script to change the key's value, but you never mentioned which key's value. (As I'm sure you know each setting in the group policy editor also has an equivalent registry hack, which is what I posted, so I'm a little unclear on what key's value you are referring to, as you also mentioned you don't see how what I posted can work).

[Delta Pythagorean]

I have the home version and it works fine. I could write a script to change the key's value.
I tested it fine on Pro and Home versions and it worked alright. I don't see how your's can work.

Ok I'm curious.
How did you get gpedit.msc to run on a vanilla home version ?
I'm aware you can download workarounds to provide the functionality but without doing so, that particular msc plugin is apparently not meant to work in the home editions, and doesn't on my machine. (If it's run from the run menu it errors saying it can't find the file, and if it's located on the drive and run from there, I get an error saying "MMC cannot open the file ...\gpedit.msc. This may be because the file does not exist, is not an MMC console, or was created by a later version of MMC. This may also be because you do not have sufficient access rights to the file.")

Also you mention you could write a script to change the key's value, but you never mentioned which key's value. (As I'm sure you know each setting in the group policy editor also has an equivalent registry hack, which is what I posted, so I'm a little unclear on what key's value you are referring to, as you also mentioned you don't see how what I posted can work).

I'm running Windows 10, home edition on a Lenovo Laptop.
I can make a script with an interactive Gui to help with this problem. Just give me some time to create it and I'll send it to this sub-forum.

[dmatch]

Hi Delta, FYI: The above method wont work in home versions of windows, as group policy editor is only available in pro (or higher) versions. Instead one would need to edit the registry by adding/changing the following:

location: HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
Key: EnableLegacyBalloonNotifications (dword32)
Value: 1 (enable) 0 (disable)

This ^^^ worked on my Win 10 Home. Had to add "\Explorer" and "EnableLegacyBalloonNotifications".

[Noesis]

Delta, no need to go to any trouble with the script, unless it's something you were planning on doing anyway. I'm basically just interested in the nuts & bolts of how you got gpedit.msc to run on the home version, as everything I've read/experienced indicates it's not actually meant to and yet for you it does, and I'm guessing that it didn't always for you, but I could be wrong about that guess.

Truth is getting gpedit to run on the home version isn't a huge deal IMO, and probably isn't worth doing if it's overly complex, especially when considering there is an equivalent registry edit one can do for everything you can do in gpedit. There is already a website/tool which can show the different equivalencies at Group Policy Search, and all I was originally trying to do was point out the alternative for this particular case, for those that can't run gpedit (using gpedit is by far the simpler method for those that have access to it, out of the box, but there are others that quite simply just don't have that access).

[jimhoyle]

Wow, amazing. Now I found this. The old balloon is million times better (for example it shows you which systray icon created the message) and evidently this trick works!

[heavyhotuser]

Hello guys!
How come, I have no HKEY_CU in registry? Or is this abbreviation for HKEY_CURRENT? If true, for which one HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG or HKEY_CURRENT_USER or both?

[lmstearn]

Hello guys!
How come, I have no HKEY_CU in registry? Or is this abbreviation for HKEY_CURRENT? If true, for which one HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG or HKEY_CURRENT_USER or both?

All explained here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKLM
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG or HKCC
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT or HKCR
HKEY_CURRENT_USER or HKCU
HKEY_USERS or HKU

[heavyhotuser]

Thank you for answers .
I did not reset OS yet .
When I do, I will report if it works for me !

[heavyhotuser]

Yeah, it works !
Nice legacy gimmick !
Thank you again !