How to Disable “HomeGroup” Feature in Windows 7?

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Recently an AskVG reader asked how can he remove "Homegroup" icon from My Computer window in Windows 7?

"Homegroup" is a new feature in Windows 7 which allows to share files and printers on a home network quickly and easily. You can get more info about Homegroup at this link.

The Homegroup can be accessed using Windows Explorer. Its displayed in Navigation pane as shown below:

Now the important thing is that not all people are going to use this new feature. If you have a single PC and don't want to use this feature, why not disable it and save some system resources? Yes, Homegroup runs 2 services in background and you can stop those services to free some valuable system resources.

So today in this tutorial, we are going to tell you how to disable "Homegroup" feature in Windows 7? So without wasting any time, lets start the tutorial:

1. Open Computer and right-click on "Homegroup" icon present in Navigation pane and select "Change HomeGroup Settings":

2. Now click on "Leave the homegroup..." link given at bottom.

3. It'll ask for confirmation, click on "Leave the homegroup" button.

4. After that, close Explorer window. Now type services.msc in RUN or Startmenu Searchbox and press Enter. It'll open "Services" window.

Here look for following 2 services:

HomeGroup Listener
HomeGroup Provider

Once you find them, double-click on each and change the "Startup type" to Disabled. Apply the changes and exit from Services window.

5. That's it. It'll permanently disable "HomeGroup" feature and its icon will also be removed from Windows Explorer:

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This article was posted by VG in following section: Troubleshooting, Windows 7.

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cesar

Great this worked. But I can't find how to disable the Network and Favorites icons and how to restore the Desktop icon in this side-menu of the windows. Can you help me? Thanks in advance.
Jon Connelly

I have tried re-enabling both Services, HomeGroup Listener & HomeGroup Provider, and while they are enabled and set to Autostart, I get the error message (from EventLog)

"The HomeGroup Listener service terminated with service-specific error %%-2147467262."

Any ideas on how to fix this?
VG

^^ It seems some system files/services are corrupt. You can do a repair installation using setup disc. It'll fix the issue.
Jon Connelly

I already did an update using my Windows 7 disc and Homegroup is back and available. Thanks!
VG

^^ Glad to know. :)
dianne

After I hit "Leave the homegroup" again (the confirmation), nothing happens, but a red x icon at the bottom of the pane and the message "Windows couldn't remove your computer from this homegroup."

What gives?
VG

^^ Try the 3rd option in the list and leave everything and then try to leave the homegroup.
Brian

I followed this step by step and it disabled the program, but did not remove the icon from my desktop... it's quite annoying that the thing can't just be dragged into the recycle bin like any other icon... how do I get it to go away?
Dave

nice tip.
Fredrik Andersson

I tried this tip using 'Windows 7 Home Premium with SP1' and it won't allow me to leave my 'home group'. No matter what I'll do it just won't allow me to leave. I tried to change things I share and leave them first but that doesn't work aswell.

It could be a bug with 'Build 7601' or perhaps we need a new way due to changes in this build either that or I'm doing something wrong but I really don't know what that could be, the tut was pretty straight forward.