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How do I get rid of AOL Search on my Taskbar?

I just installed the latest version of America Online (AOL) software and man, I'm steamed! All of a sudden AOL's taken over my entire Windows taskbar! How the heck do I get rid of the $#@$@# thing?

Dave's Answer:

I know what you mean about AOL software. In general, I find that Windows applications are much more presumptuous than Mac applications and AOL's about the worst offender, adding its own stuff to the Start bar, to the Quicklinks, to the Taskbar and more. Then it's darn tricky to figure out how to get rid of it all and have your computer work as desired.

I presume you're talking about this when you talk about having AOL Search take over your taskbar:

Logically, you'd think that right clicking on the AOL Search area or clicking on the triangle adjacent to the "Go" button would reveal some preferences:

AOL Search Options from the Windows Taskbar

It does offer a Settings option, but when you choose that, you end up with the completely useless:

Interesting how none of them are "'turn off this $#@$ feature"!

It turns out that it's actually easy to turn off the AOL Search area once you realize that Windows thinks of it as another toolbar. Just right-click anywhere that the taskbar itself is empty and you'll see "Toolbars": simply disable the "AOL Deskbar" and it all vanishes:

So it turns out to be pretty easy to do, once you figure everything out.

Hope that helps you recover some of your precious taskbar real estate!

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Categorized: Windows Help (Article 5923)
Tagged: america online, aol, aol deskbar
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Comments

I really appreciate the help i was lost until i found this page.

Posted by: Lysandra Wms. at March 27, 2006 3:42 PM

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! You are now my hero. Why is it we never think of the obvious first. Luckily, you were here to help me see the light. Keep up the great work!

Posted by: Vito at April 4, 2006 7:38 PM

I hate AOL. With passions.

I uninstalled everything. Or so I thought.
But when I select and right-click text, there's still a menu option for AOL Toolbar Search. How can I get rid of this? Do I have to do some voodoo in the Registry?

Note -- I have NO AOL software currently installed. I do, however, still have AOL entries in the registry. What happens if I do a REGEDIT and zap them away? Will it do harm?

Posted by: Michael at August 28, 2006 2:09 PM

if you want to get rid of the aol toolbar on your internet explorer toolbar at the top of the screen, just click the arrow facing down next to the aol symbol and go to help, it will have the uninstall option there, hope this helps.

Posted by: phillip at September 3, 2006 2:30 AM

Dave, I don't even know how I found this just now..oh, I went to AOL keyword...go figure! LOL

I have a problem. All of my icons on bottom are gone and before they all "left, my speaker icon was gone and I can't figure out how to make my sound work. I have a new monitor. Do you think it could be the speakers on the monitor are defective? Please, any help in the world will do. I'm lost!

I did take the info above though and get that AOL search thing off the botto of my screen. Thanks

Posted by: Hazel at November 15, 2006 9:38 PM

You rock! Thanks for you simple but impossible fix!!!

Posted by: Pete at May 10, 2007 4:44 PM

i have a 10 year old dell dimension xps 400. when i bought it, it was top of the line. still runs great with the new dsl. i have about 60% of my resources free(whatever that means). i wonder what would happen if i got rid of all the programs and file that i don't use. i click on start and there seems to be hundreds of thing i don't need in here. do i just right click and delete or is there more to it?

Posted by: jim at May 22, 2007 11:55 AM

Hi Dave,

I just got Windows Vista. I'd like to disable the "AOL Search" box on the toolbar that displays my URL. Then I'd like to move the "File Edit View Favorites Tools Help" menu up to share the same bar as the URL box. Is that possible?

I've tried right-clicking on things, and configuring the bars in the View, to no avail. I've read one thing that said right click on an empty space in the tool bar and there is no empty space, nor do I get a menu that allows me to get rid of the #?&^% AOL Search box.

Posted by: Dirk Farley at September 9, 2007 5:44 PM

hi there i have recently switched isp and can`t remove the aol connection icon from my toolbar. can anyone help

Posted by: Rob at April 15, 2008 6:57 AM

I have a lot to say, but ...

I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!