How to Remove “Homegroup” from Windows Explorer Navigation Pane?

This tutorial will help you in removing “Homegroup” icon from the Navigation pane in Windows 7 or later as shown in following screenshot:

Simply follow these simple steps:

1. Type regedit in RUN or Start search box and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

3. Now you’ll need to change value of Attributes DWORD present in the right-side section. But Windows will not allow you to change its value as you won’t have proper permissions. So take ownership of ShellFolder key with the help of this guide.

4. Now double-click on Attributes DWORD given in right-side section and change its value to b094010c

5. That’s it. Restart, log off or restart Explorer as given here to take effect and “Homegroup” will no longer present in Explorer window.

If you want to restore “Homegroup” in Navigation pane, simply change value of Attributes DWORD to b084010c using step 4.

NOTE: If you are using 64-bit edition of Windows, you may notice that Homegroup icon is still present in “Browse” dialog box such as Save, Save as or Open in some 3rd party 32-bit programs. To remove Homegroup icon from there, you’ll need to perform the same steps in following key as well:

Just go to above mentioned key, take ownership of the key and in right-side pane, change value of Attributes DWORD to b094010c to remove Homegroup icon.

PS: If you want to completely disable “Homegroup” feature, you can visit following tutorial:

How to Disable “Homegroup” Feature in Windows 7 and Later?