The Internet Explorer toolbar can be customized using the registry editor. This can be useful to add or remove elements from the toolbar completely. Every change can be reverted back. A few simple commands can make some unwanted buttons and commands to disappear from the toolbar. Here is how you can do it..
-
Click "Start > Run".
-
Type "regedit" and press [Enter].
‘HKEY_CURRENT_USERS > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Policies > Explorer’.
-
Right-click the white space and in the context menu select "New > DWORD value".
-
Name this value as "SpecifyDefaultButtons" and set its value to "1".
To hide individual icons from the Internet Explorer toolbar simply create the following DWORD values. Once you have created these values, double-click them and enter the "Value" as "2". The following are the value names to hide these buttons.
"Btn_Back" – Hide Back
"Btn_Forward" – Hide Forward
"Btn_Stop" – Hide Stop
"Btn_Refresh" – Hide Refresh
"Btn_Home" – Hide Home
"Btn_Search" – Hide Search
"Btn_History" – Hide History
"Btn_Favorites" – Hide Favorites
"Btn_Folders" – Hide Folders
"Btn_Fullscreen" – Hide Fullscreen
"Btn_Tools" – Hide Tools
"Btn_MailNews" – Hide Mail
"Btn_Size" – Hide size
"Btn_Print" – Hide Print
To make the buttons visible again simply double click an appropriate value and set the value to "1". You can also delete the DWORD value as an alternative