Getting Started

Getting Started

This page takes you from zero to a guarded notification area in about five minutes, on a plain Windows 10 1703+ / Windows 11 machine, without administrator rights. It covers both lifestyles the program supports — portable and installed — and the headless route for machines you manage by script.

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Contents

• What you need
• Download and verify
• First run: the setup wizard
• Portable mode
• The first five minutes in the GUI
• Headless in three commands
• Where your data lives
• Uninstall
• See also

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What you need

Requirement	Detail
OS	Windows 10 1703 (build 15063) or newer, x64 — including Windows 11 and Server 2019/2022/2025
Runtimes	none; the executable is statically linked and imports only Windows system DLLs
Rights	standard user; the program never triggers a UAC prompt
Space	~1 MB executable plus small AppData folders

On older builds the per-icon store does not exist: the program still runs, reports the limitation on the Dashboard, and store commands exit 2 (see Troubleshooting).

Download and verify

1. Take TrayIconGuard.exe (and optionally the zip) from the repository's Releases.
2. Compare its SHA-256 with the release's SHA256SUMS file — and, if you like, with the hash pinned in the update feed (update/stable.json in the repository):

Get-FileHash .\TrayIconGuard.exe -Algorithm SHA256

3. Downloaded files carry Mark-of-the-Web; SmartScreen will warn about the unsigned binary once. Either unblock it or let the embedded installer copy it (the copy is MOTW-free):

Unblock-File .\TrayIconGuard.exe

Background and alternatives (including code signing for fleets): [[Installation and Deployment]] and docs/SMARTSCREEN.md in the repository.

First run: the setup wizard

Launching the executable with no arguments on a fresh profile opens the built-in setup wizard — there is no external installer to download:

1. Install folder — default %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\TrayIconGuard; Browse… opens a folder picker.
2. Start with Windows — creates the HKCU Run entry (launched --minimized).
3. Desktop shortcut and Start Menu shortcut (the Start Menu group also gets an Uninstall TrayIconGuard link).
4. Install copies the executable, writes the shortcuts and an Apps & Features uninstall entry, then relaunches from the install folder. Just run once, no install selects portable mode.

The wizard appears only while the install mode is unknown; portable users can install later from About → Install to this PC…. Cancelling the wizard exits without changing anything.

Portable mode

Copy the executable anywhere and run it. Everything still works — settings, logs and snapshots live in your profile, not next to the exe. Portable is the right choice for USB sticks, read-only machines, and evaluation. The only differences from installed mode: no shortcuts, no Apps & Features entry, and (if you downloaded it) the Mark-of-the-Web warning until you unblock or install.

The first five minutes in the GUI

After the wizard (or after choosing portable), the program:

1. detects your Windows theme and UI language (auto among 30 locales);
2. promotes every hidden notification-area icon once;
3. arms the guard and shows a welcome balloon;
4. lives in the notification area — double-click its shield icon to open the window.

A useful first tour:

• Dashboard — live counters (registered / on taskbar / hidden / excluded), quick actions, system card, recent activity.
• Tray icons — the full store listing; toggle individual icons, search (Ctrl+F), filter, right-click a row for promote/hide/exclude/open location/copy path or id.
• Guard — timing knobs and repairs; if you run a published 8.3.0/8.4.0 build, set Polling fallback to 5 s here until you adopt the patched build (see The Guard Watcher for why).
• Appearance — theme, accent, language, animations.
• Backups — snapshots; auto-backup before bulk changes is on by default.

Keyboard: Ctrl+1…7 jump between pages, F5 rescans, Tab/Shift+Tab traverse, Esc blurs focus, Shift+close exits instead of minimizing to tray.

Headless in three commands

For servers, VMs and script-managed desktops the same executable is a CLI:

TrayIconGuard.exe --promote-all          # one-shot reconcile; exit 0, or 2 on unsupported stores
TrayIconGuard.exe --watch                # persistent headless guard (Ctrl+C stops)
TrayIconGuard.exe --status --json        # monitoring-friendly snapshot

Add --install-autostart for logon-started GUI, or a scheduled task pointing at --watch for a GUI-less guard. Full flag table with measured outputs: Command-Line Interface.

Where your data lives

Data	Path
Settings	%APPDATA%\TrayIconGuard\settings.json
Logs (14 days)	%LOCALAPPDATA%\TrayIconGuard\logs\
Snapshots (30 kept)	%LOCALAPPDATA%\TrayIconGuard\backups\

Nothing else is written; nothing is sent anywhere unless you ask for an update check (Security and Privacy).

Uninstall

• Installed: Apps & Features → TrayIconGuard, or the Start Menu uninstall link, or TrayIconGuard.exe --uninstall. Shortcuts, autostart and the install folder are removed; your settings/logs/snapshots remain until you delete the two AppData folders.
• Portable: delete the executable; optionally delete the AppData folders above.

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See also

• Installation and Deployment — scripts, MSIX kit, SmartScreen, fleets
• GUI Pages Guide — every page and control in detail
• Configuration Reference — what settings.json can do for you
• Troubleshooting — when the first five minutes go sideways