[Windows Tip] How to Remove “NEW” Tag from Newly Installed Program Shortcuts in Start Menu
Recently an AskVG reader asked me about a method to disable the “NEW” tag present on newly installed program shortcuts in Start Menu of Windows 10.
Actually in Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 operating systems, after installing a new software program if you check its shortcut entry in Start Screen or Start Menu, you’ll see a “NEW” tag present next to the shortcut as shown in following screenshot:
It’s a feature of Windows OS which helps users in identifying the newly installed programs easily but sometimes this feature becomes very irritating when the “NEW” mark is displayed on several newly installed programs.
Microsoft has not provided any option to permanently disable or hide the appearance of “NEW” tag on newly installed programs. Also I was unable to find any group policy or registry tweak to turn off the “NEW” tag display in Start Menu.
I also tried the good ol’ registry trick to disable highlighting of newly installed programs in Start Menu which requires creating new DWORD Start_NotifyNewApps in “HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftware MicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced” key and settings its value to 0. It used to work in older Windows versions such as Windows XP but unfortunately it no longer works in Windows 8/8.1/10.
As of now I’m aware of only 2 ways to remove the “NEW” tag from newly installed programs shortcuts in Start Menu which are as following:
METHOD 1:
If you launch the newly installed program by clicking on its shortcut present in Start Menu/Start Screen, it’ll immediately remove the “NEW” tag from the shortcut. So you just need to open the program once and the “NEW” tag will disappear.
METHOD 2:
If you don’t want to open the program, just right-click on the program shortcut which is showing the “NEW” tag. As soon as you right-click on it, the “NEW” tag will disappear from the shortcut.
These are the only ways to get rid of the “NEW” tag from newly installed program shortcut in Start Menu. If I come across any working solution to completely disable this feature, I’ll update this tutorial.