How to Disable Hot Corners (Charms Bar, Start Screen Thumbnail, App Switch List) in Windows 8?

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1. This does not work. I followed these directions and when I swipe on my touchpad from left to right the charms bar still pops up. Looks like MS released a “fix” to prevent your software from working. They are on a mission to prevent users from doing things the way they like and are forcing us to deal with their vision of how computers should be.

2. Seconding Erik’s comment. I followed the instructions and the sidebar still appears when I swipe, EVEN WHEN I AM NOT IN THE TOP RIGHT CORNER! So annoying. I have also noticed that since about a month ago, it no longer skips the Start Screen. (I have been using Classic Shell for 10 months now.) It seem as though Classic Shell does not work anymore.

3. GETTING RID OF WINDOWS 8 POP-UP CLOCK CHARMS BAR AND START ICONS

   I have just got a new computer with Windows 8 which I hated at first. This worked for me – installing Classic Shell and removing clock/charms bar by

   Control Panel/ Mouse/ Device Settings/ Settings/ Un-tick box ” Enable Edge Swipes”/ Apply

   Working OK so far. Good Luck.

4. Juliana has the solution all along. thumbs up! I don’t want to remove the charm bar, but just suppress it when i’m swiping my mouse towards the left.

5. This literally brought me to tears. Why would they put hot corners where you constantly click already to close the window or scroll up or down? I have been so upset about this – it was constantly interfering with my work and internet use. THANK GOD for Classic Shell. YOU HAVE HONESTLY IMPROVED MY LIFE.

6. You asked, I answer. I hate Hot Corners. I use a triple screen setup in either Extended or Eyefinity mode. I like to watch YouTube videos on my right screen while surfing on the middle screen. When YT is on the right screen, the play/pause button is in the bottom left corner. EVERY TIME I try to press that button, I go just a little too far into the bottom right corner of the middle screen. Then my mouse cursor gets trapped by the “Hot Corner,” which I have resentfully named the Mouse Trap. I’m to the point of pulling my hair out and my ears off. I shouldn’t have to download third party software to get rid of this flaw. Microsoft has attempted to one-up other more innovating tech companies by creating something totally new to be “the super awesome original new operating system that does things way different,” without regard to the fact that all of their new ideas are completely inconvenient. Oh well, at least it’s new.

7. I also hate Hot Corners. It irritates the snot out of me. These sorts of “innovations” should be opted into rather than forced on loyal customers. Microsoft should rethink their evolutionary approach before there run off too many customers to Apple, etc.

8. Great fix buddy ! Keep up the good work !

9. I think Microsoft employ too many young kids that have never worked in the real world.
   Windows 8 is a complete shambles especially the hot corner buttons

10. Finally fixed this God-awful charms bar issue!! First, I disabled the charms menu in classic shell on my Toshiba Satellite by right clicking on start, settings, windows 8 settings tab, disable all active corners. But the mouse was still getting hung up. For the real solution, I had to go into my touch pad settings. Go to mouse properties, device settings, then settings. This allowed me to change many things about how the touch pad works. The real culprit was the edge swipes, which was set up to summon the charms bar whenever you swiped onto the pad from the right (incredibly annoying). I just disabled this feature and in combination with classic shell, my PC runs and looks just like good ol 7. Hope this helps!!

11. Thank you 🙂 It’s okay sometimes but it will get in my when I scroll up and down or when I hit on the side to play a game it gets c.zy for a while.

12. I loathe and despise Hot Corners!!!!!!! Very glad to hear there is a way to disable it. I have had the shell on since I got Windows Eight, but still had the corners. Hoping that they are gone for good. Happy to have a nearly-windows-seven computer now 🙂

13. Hot corners are horrible. I too am ready to throw my computer out the window. I tried all of your suggestions to get rid of it and nothing worked. I don’t have to go anywhere near the edge of my computer for this to pop up. Makes my computer totally useless 🙁

14. My active corners cleared up after I went to Control Panel>Mouse>Device Settings>Settings and un-selected “Enable Edge Swipes”. No more surprise Clock and Edge Menu.

15. People don’t seem to realize that the Metro interface (Start screen, tiles, and full-screen bare windows) was designed for light computer usage (especially playing games) on touchscreen tablets, which have no keyboard or mouse. It works pretty well for that purpose.

    If your hardware is a desktop or laptop, the interface doesn’t work well at all. Microsoft’s design problem was simply that they currently provide no way to disable the Metro interface. They fell in love with an interface for a new piece of hardware just because it’s handy and new. There is nothing wrong with giving an OS a “skin” that is appropriate to the computer hardware being used.

    I feel sure that they will fix this problem in a future upgrade. Currently, Windows 8.1 is worse than 8, according to many postings on the Web. Windows should simply support tablets and laptops/desktops with different user interfaces.

    But if a new user does a good Web search, they can find advice that turns Windows 8 back into a good old standard computer, just like XP (either by making internal changes, or by installing the free Classic Shell). The only remaining problem is that many casual yet serious computer users don’t really know how to do effective Web searches. These people are stuck, as so many postings and videos give ample testimony.

16. For Asus laptop the easy way to turn off the annoying charm bar. Go to control control pannel >> Hardware & Sound >> ASUS Gesture and untick Left swipe for Charm bar.

17. I’ve discovered an interesting glitch that disabled my hot corners, though that was not what I desired. Feel free to try. Point your cursor to the bottom left corner, see that “Start” popping up, then hold Win and press Tab several times, after that all my hot corners were gone and I could only re-enable then by fiddling quite a bit with the PC Settings in the General tab.

18. This is the only thing that stopped those annoying charms on my new Toshiba. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!

19. Microsoft appears to have disabled the disabler in Classic Shell. First of all, Classic shell is the best part of my windows. I even downloaded Linux Ubuntu and wiped a few of my laptops of windows 8 altogether. Having said that – After you get Classic Shell, if the disabler does not work on your system (blocked by MS no doubt), go ahead to Control Panel, Mouse, select your touchpad, then properties. Under properties uncheck the active corners. Apply. This works. Best of luck.

20. Do NOT install ‘Classic Shell’!!
    It carries the ‘feed.helper bar’ virus which hijacks your homepage and is an absolute pig to remove.

21. Thank you…the ‘sidebar’ charm was really starting to annoy me!

22. Thanks for the fix. I finally disabled this unbearable annoying ??feature?? What were they thinking when they came up with this one?

23. Having stupidly swaping an outdated Mac for a HP laptop running 8.1 was the worst purchase ever. The stupid side bar appeared when ever the mouse decided to stop working which was every three minutes. I found that by right clicking on the bottom navigation it turned off with a click so you don’t need to install everything. Windows 8.1 is a complete mess, I have done 128 updates in less than 1 calendar month compared to OSX which is 1 in one month which was 10 times the file size and took 3 minutes to install and then update. This new laptop took 3 hours. Microsoft need to pull there socks up.

24. i can’t think of anything LESS useful than downloading ANOTHER update that may or may not work – shove it – if i hadn’t updated and upgraded to the abortion called windows 8 – i wouldn’t be here right now …

25. Hello Microsoft – hows it going with Win 8? Great user testing program you have there.

26. I can live with hot corners.
    What is really annoying is this bug:
    Normally you place mouse in hot corner, transparent sidebar appear and if you move mouse inside sidebar area, its background turns black.
    And now the bug: sometimes (randomly, very rare) black sidebar appear when mouse is in its area even if mouse was not in hot corner and transparent sidebar did not appear first. I believe this is a bug.

27. thank you, & classic shell is great tool.

28. If you have an ASUS laptop, you need to open ASUS SMART GESTURE in the hidden tray icons, open EDGE GESTURE, and un-click the three square radio buttons there. Nothing else worked on my ASUS notebook to get rid of the annoying side panels.

29. I am so frustrated with windows 8.1 and even more so because whatever you purchase nowadays this awful program is superimposed on you. I’ve wasted enormous amount of hours trying to deal with the issues of windows 8.1

    Although I have Classic Shell installed, it only works partially. None of the suggestions to get rid of the hot corners work: not classic shell, not disabling ‘active corners’, ‘left swipe’ or ‘edge sweep’ features. I still get the incredibly annoying hot corner “not-charm” bar popping up. Constantly.

    There should be a class action lawsuit against microsoft for superimposing this tuly idiotic program on buyers rather then giving buyers the option to select their own operating system. I’m thinking of mailing them an invoice for wasted work time.

30. Dear Friend, I am not able to concentrate on my work while working with Win-8 Home page. When I work seriously, suddenly it touches something & corners & home/start page displaying. even if i press escape keep disturbing this Win-8 home page.

    After I installed the Classic Shell, I disabled all as I needed. Now I am happily using without frustration/irritation.