Does Internet Explorer’s floating toolbar for pictures bother you? If you are using a computer running Windows XP, you can do away with this toolbar by following this easy to do registry tweak.
If IE’s My Pictures toolbar doesn’t show up for you and you would like to have the program, you can also use this registry tweak to enable the application.
It is always best to create a back-up before editing your registry. Changes to the registry are irreversible unless a back-up has been created.
Here are the steps to enable or disable the My Pictures toolbar in Internet Explorer.
- Click Start and go to Run. Type in regedit and click OK.
- Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER. This is found on the left side of the box. Expand the folder by clicking the cross on the left.
- Look for the Software folder. Expand this folder.
- Look for the Policies folder. Expand this folder until you find Microsoft.
- Once you’ve found Microsoft, expand and go to Internet Explorer.
- Expand Internet Explorer and go to the Photo Support folder.
- This time, look at the right hand pane of your registry editor. If you can find MyPics_Hoverbar, skip 7a and go to step eight. If you can’t find the value, create it following the steps in step 7a.
- Right click on the white part of the right hand side of the box.
- Select New and select DWORD.
- Rename it MyPics_Hoverbar. You can also rename the new DWORD value by right clicking on the new value and selecting Rename.
- Double click MyPics_Hoverbar. A new box will pop up.
- If you would like to have the My Pictures Toolbar enabled, enter 1. If you’d like to disable the My Pictures Toolbar, enter 0.
- Exit the registry and reboot.