How remove shadows on Icon Titles on desktop in Windows 10???

morlaine said:

I was so pleased to see your suggestion as with all my searching I had not seen this suggestion before. I opened Regedit and this entry was already set to zero. So, I set it to 1, rebooted, but no change to the shadows. So I changed the entry to zero, rebooted, and again, no change to the shadows. I think the computer gods are mad at me.

I upgraded to Windows 10 from 8.1 a little over a month ago and have not been able to do anything I normally do on my computer because I've spent all my time trying to get Windows 10 to work correctly. I have managed to solve most of the major problems, with lots of help from people on the internet. Now I'm down to the smaller problem problems like this one. They may be smaller, but they are no less aggravating.

Thank you for trying to help me. I do appreciate your time. Maybe someone else out there will have something else I can try.

It's driving me nuts too - and what is worse is when people think that unticking the thing in system performance or changing the registry will work -IT DOESN'T. I tried upgrade images and clean uninstalls - nothing works.. I even tried making the background transparent (some German guy swore that worked). I can't go with W10 until I get to fix this and nobody knows... task view is a big attraction to me, but on twin screens, I hit task view and the drop shadows are back !

They say its a hangover from W8 that was never fixed...

HELP US ! SOMEBODY.. first one to talk about unticking in performance or the registry value to zero will be strung from the yardarm !

I solved this problem. At least it works on my PC. YMMV. I would never claim anything works, I can only say it worked for me. Here's what I did.

Open the Control Panel

Then click on System

Advanced System Settings

Under Performance click on Settings

When Performance Options screen comes up

Click on Let Windows Choose what's best for my computer

Re-boot, not a Restart. I don't trust Restarts because they can leave settings you don't want
Then do the following:

Go to Control Panel

Then click on System

Advanced System Settings

Under Performance click on Settings

When the Performance Options screen comes up
Click on Custom.

I then checked only the following options:
Enable Peek

Show thumbnails instead of icons

Smooth edges of screen fonts

Smooth-scroll list boxes

Click OK back to the beginning.
Re-boot again.
I hope this works for you. I found it only after a lot of experimentation.
See the two attached screen prints so you can better see what I'm talking about on the selected options.
Please let me know if it works. If it works, I'll mark this as solved.

morlaine said:

I solved this problem. At least it works on my PC. YMMV. I would never claim anything works, I can only say it worked for me. Here's what I did.

Open the Control Panel

Then click on System

Advanced System Settings

Under Performance click on Settings

When Performance Options screen comes up

Click on Let Windows Choose what's best for my computer

Re-boot, not a Restart. I don't trust Restarts because they can leave settings you don't want
Then do the following:

Go to Control Panel

Then click on System

Advanced System Settings

Under Performance click on Settings

When the Performance Options screen comes up
Click on Custom.

I then checked only the following options:
Enable Peek

Show thumbnails instead of icons

Smooth edges of screen fonts

Smooth-scroll list boxes

Click OK back to the beginning.
Re-boot again.
I hope this works for you. I found it only after a lot of experimentation.
See the two attached screen prints so you can better see what I'm talking about on the selected options.
Please let me know if it works. If it works, I'll mark this as solved.

Wow that's a great answer.. just getting wifey's new computer going, the BIOS just posted and all is good... when I have done that, I will try your very comprehensive fix later today ..and let you know ! It's the most hopeful looking in 2 weeks and that's a fact... I'll be back ! and many thanks ! ...Alan ps there are a lot on the net looking for this fix--so fingers crossed

allserene said:

Wow that's a great answer.. just getting wifey's new computer going, the BIOS just posted and all is good... when I have done that, I will try your very comprehensive fix later today ..and let you know ! It's the most hopeful looking in 2 weeks and that's a fact... I'll be back ! and many thanks ! ...Alan ps there are a lot on the net looking for this fix--so fingers crossed

oh dear no go.... I snipped your post and had it as a jpg on my second screen so I could follow it precisely... The drop shadows are back as soon as I click 'task view'. See attached..Thanks for trying -I wonder if it is my two screens ?

I know exactly how aggravating this problem can be. It's too bad that Windows 10 is so inconsistent. It would seem that something so simple would have a simple solution that would work for everyone. If you do find a solution that works for you, please post it here so others can try your solution.

I never use the Task View. One of the few things I like about Windows 10, and there aren't very many, is the little white lines on the Task Bar under the active windows. But based on your comment, I did click on the Task View button. Boy, do I wish I hadn't. When I closed out of it and went back to the desktop, the shadows were back. And there's one of the reasons I hate Windows 10. It is just Hinky. I'm going to go through my steps again and see if they will work a second time. I'm not going to hold my breath.

So that means that this problem is not solved. And somehow it is made worse by the Task View.

Here's an update to my above post. After clicking on the Task View button and the Icon title shadows re-appearing, I closed out of everything and turned the laptop off. I left it off a couple of minutes and thankfully, when I turned it back on the shadows were gone again.

I will never click on that Task View button again. In fact, I removed it from the Task bar, so I won't accidentally click on it.

Good luck with your search to get rid of the pesky critters.

I've tried all of the above and nothing worked, couldn't disable that text shadow on icons.
I'm using Windows 10 Enterprise and I have admin account, so I'm making the policies.

So, to recap, this is what I have disabled:
- Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop (in System>Advanced>Performance>Visual effects)
- ListViewShadows set to 0 in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
- no option is configured (enabled/disabled) in the Group Policy Editor > User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Personalisation, so there's no group policy that could block making changes to this setting

This is the latest Win10 Enterprise Anniversary Update with the latest updates installed.

So, at this point, I just think it must be a bug in Win10.