Help Tips - Enable or Disable in Windows 8.1

How to Enable or Disable Pop-up Help Tips in Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1​

   Information

In Windows 8 and Windows RT the way to open the Charms, Start, and Switcher UIs was pretty much hidden and unknown at first unless the user just happened to stumble upon them to open them.

In Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1, new users will now see pop-up help tips when they first move the pointer near these hidden UI access points to help ID what they are for and how to open them. By default, Windows will show the user help tips until the user has successfully completed the scenarios to open the UI.

However, if you have experienced users, then you may not want these help tips to show and waste their time having to go through them.

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable the pop-up help tips from showing for all or specific users in Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1.

You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.

EXAMPLE: Pop-up Help Tips

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Charms tip (top right corner)​

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Start tip (bottom left corner)​

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Switcher tips (top and bottom left corners)​

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OPTION ONE

To Enable or Disable Pop-up Help Tips using a REG File

   Note

The .reg files below are for the registry key and value below.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI

DisableHelpSticker DWORD

0 = Enable help tips
1 = Disable help tips

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1. Do step 2 or 3 below for what you would like to do.​

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2. To Enable Pop-up Help Tips for All Users​

NOTE: This is the default setting.​

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A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.​

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Enable_Help_Tips.reg​

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3. To Disable Pop-up Help Tips for All Users​

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A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.​

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Disable_Help_Tips.reg​

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4. Save the .reg file to your desktop.​

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5. Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.​

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6. Click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK when prompted to approve merging the .reg file.​

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7. When finished, you can delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.​

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8. Restart the PC to apply.​

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OPTION TWO

To Enable or Disable Pop-up Help Tips in Group Policy

NOTE: This option for using group policy is only available in the Windows 8.1/RT Pro and Windows 8.1 Enterprise editions.

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1. Open the all users, specific users or groups, or all users except administrators Local Group Policy Editor for how you want this policy to be applied.​

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2. In the left pane, click/tap on to expand User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, and Edge UI. (see screenshot below)​

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3. In the right pane of Edge UI, double click/tap on Disable help tips to edit it. (see screenshot above)​

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4. Do step 5 or 6 below for what you would like to do.​

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5. To Enable Pop-up Help Tips​

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A) Select (dot) either Not Configured or Disabled, and go to step 7 below. (see screenshot below step 7)​

NOTE: Not Configured is the default setting.​

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6. To Disable Pop-up Help Tips​

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A) Select (dot) Enabled, and go to step 7 below. (see screenshot below step 7)​

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7. Click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)​

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8. Close the Local Group Policy Editor window.​

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That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

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• How to Enable or Disable the First Sign-in Animation in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Enable or Disable Pop-up Descriptions in Windows 7 and Windows 8

 

[NiFu]

I tested the registry way because I want to use it also for "Windows 8" - which doesn't have a group policy editor.
But don't work for me.
Neither the "pop-up help tips" disappear nor the group policy entry changes.

When I do the changes in group policy editor I get two registry entries:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Group Policy Objects\{768C9825-7015-496C-AF0E-7D6E23BDA363}User\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI
"DisableHelpSticker"=dword:00000001

HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI
"DisableHelpSticker"=dword:00000001

• So I think the registry entry HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI don't work alone.
• The other registry entry with {768C9825-7015-496C-AF0E-7D6E23BDA363} includes a machine specific no. and so not applicable on other PCs.
• Btw.: Windows stores the policy also in folder "C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\User". Because when I delete the two registry entries group policy editor still shows the entry as "Enabled".

So I don't see at the moment a way for "Windows 8" user to disable the "pop-up help tips".

 

[Brink]

Hello NiFu,

You would only want to use the HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI registry location since that is the one that is used to apply the policy. The other location is a reference used by Group Policy instead.

You will not see the setting change in Group Policy if you only manually make the setting in regedit.

Windows 8 does not have these pop-up help tips. They are only available in Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1 instead.

 

[NiFu]

Windows 8 does not have these pop-up help tips. They are only available in Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1 instead.

OK - my mistake in the above post: I meant "Windows 8.1". So it should read:

... because I want to use it also for "Windows 8.1" ...
... So I don't see at the moment a way for "Windows 8.1" user to disable the "pop-up help tips".

You would only want to use the HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\EdgeUI registry location since that is the one that is used to apply the policy.

My observations for the registry hack remain the same:

don't work for me.
Neither the "pop-up help tips" disappear [nor the group policy entry changes.]

 

[Brink]

Ah, ok. I thought that you may have meant 8.1 instead of 8. Oops.

Manually setting policies in the registry instead will never be reflected in Group Policy.

Did you restart the PC afterwards to apply the registry change, then test this in a new account?


I tested again in a different virtual machine, and setting group policy works fully. I get no help tips.

However, for some reason when using the .reg file, I still get the Start tip and don't see the others when signing in to a new account for the first time. I get the Start tip when I open PC settings, and move towards the lower left corner.

Is this what you are seeing as well?

Doing more testing now.

 

[Brink]

NiFu,

After some more testing on various systems, it appears that both the HKCU and HKLM locations in the registry need to be set instead of either or as usual. Using both, it works for me without fail. Logically it doesn't make sense why both need to be set, but there you go.

If you would, please try the .reg files from OPTION ONE again to see if they work for you now when you sign in to a new user account in Windows 8.1 RTM.

 

[NiFu]

I can confirm that this reg file with HKCU and HKLM now works reliably.

 

[Brink]

Great news. Thank you for posting back to confirm NiFu.

 

[TonyB]

OMG thank you i did the option 2

 

[strollin]

Thanks for this Brink. The Help tips in 8.1 are intrusive and just plain annoying, not helpful at all. IMO, the worst thing about 8.1.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome Bruce. I suppose the help tips could still be somewhat helpful in explaining what an action does for folks that are not as technically inclined.

 

[Metalmania31]

It went away after a day. I haven't seen it since. Maybe it's timed for the initial update and once the user has visited the metro page it goes away after a day or so. This is just a guess, I'm not sure. But I haven't seen it again since the initial update.

 

[Brink]

Hello Metalmania,

Yeah, the Help Tips will stop on there own after going through them. However, any new user account you create will see them as well until they go through them.

Disabling the Help Tips will prevent them from seen in the first place afterwards. It just depends on what your preferences are though.

 

[Beebo]

This approach is such an incredibly poor implementation. What's wrong with a "don't bug me" checkbox for something like this? Making the user edit the registry, shut all apps down and restart just to get unwanted tutorials that interfere with functionality to go away? Mandatory tips? I don't have a touch screen, so can't even complete the switch between apps "tip". If I were a novice user I would actually have to pay someone to remove this for me. If it were anyone but the OS manufacturer inflicting this on a PC, what would a "feature" like this be identified as? May I offer a tip: All users are not novices. Stop using so much energy and resources h trying to dumb down windows for the lowest users in the spectrum and present EVERYTHING offered with an opt in/out selection. This approach is annoying and insulting, not to mention counterproductive to those of us who don't need or want it. Stupid all around on this one.

 

[Brink]

This approach is such an incredibly poor implementation. What's wrong with a "don't bug me" checkbox for something like this? Making the user edit the registry, shut all apps down and restart just to get unwanted tutorials that interfere with functionality to go away? Mandatory tips? I don't have a touch screen, so can't even complete the switch between apps "tip". If I were a novice user I would actually have to pay someone to remove this for me. If it were anyone but the OS manufacturer inflicting this on a PC, what would a "feature" like this be identified as? May I offer a tip: All users are not novices. Stop using so much energy and resources h trying to dumb down windows for the lowest users in the spectrum and present EVERYTHING offered with an opt in/out selection. This approach is annoying and insulting, not to mention counterproductive to those of us who don't need or want it. Stupid all around on this one.

Hello Beebo,

The "Help Tips" were implemented into Windows 8 because of the radical user interface (UI) change from previous versions of Windows, and to help point out hidden menus.

While it was designed to help users get used to the new UI, I agree that it can be an annoyance to us more experienced users. That's why I created this tutorial to disable "Help Tips" for those that do not need or want to see it.

Regardless, it's always better to have the option for the OS to be more helpful than nothing at all leaving you scratching your head about where is that or that. Especially since it can be so easily disabled for us experienced users.