How to turn off printing notification dialog/bubble in Windows XP


That little bubble that pops up from my system tray to tell me “the document was sent to the printer” was really annoying me.

    Here’s what I searched for:

  1. “the document was sent to the printer” turn off

Here’s the answer:

1. Click Start, and then click Printers and Faxes.
2. On the File menu, click Server Properties.
3. On the Advanced click the options you want to apply:
• Show informational notifications for local printers. This option notifies users when a job is printed on a printer that is attached to this computer.
• Show informational notifications for network printers. This option notifies users of this computer when a job is printed on a remote computer.

I found this answer here, and there is also more information there for other types of printer setups.

Update:
I also found these registry changes for Windows XP on this Troubleshooting Windows XP Site which you may want to try if the above advice isn’t working:

This one is for balloon tips disable:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"EnableBalloonTips"=dword:00000000

And this one is for disabling all balloon tips?

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"EnableBalloonTips"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"FolderContentsInfoTip"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\tips]
"Show"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"StartButtonBalloonTip"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"ShowInfoTip"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoSMBalloonTip"=dword:00000000

14 Responses to “How to turn off printing notification dialog/bubble in Windows XP”

  1. Eric S says:

    THANK YOU. Damn that was so annoying.

  2. Very good page and information presented. I used the instructions I found to turn printing notofication off for one of my end-users. I had seen that setting so many times before but today for some reason as I was looking around on the desktop through control panel >> printers and other places, including the server, I could not find the setting. This answermysearches.com page got right to the point with the answer and I was able to take care of the printing notification balloon on the desktop and the server. I haven’t tried the reg modifications yet but I’m glad they were shown too in case I need them another time same issue.

    Thank you,
    John West

  3. John,

    I’m glad I could help.

  4. It was perfect. I know if I have gone to Microsoft’s site and ran a search, although their results are pretty good I would have to rummage around through the search results for a while to find the answer I needed.
    I going to give answermysearch.com another try directly next time. This time I landed here from search results. Thank again. John.

  5. You scratch I scratch says:

    Thanks for having an easy to follow solution. How am I going to repay you?? [CENSORED!] :o ) Have a good one.

  6. Glad I could help, You Scratch, I scratch. I had to edit your comment as that kind of talk can get one banned from the program I hear ;-)

  7. Dave says:

    Thank you, very helpful!

  8. michele says:

    thank you jesus allah yaweh and buddha for the internet. That was driving me absolutely nuts! And windows help? fuggeddaboutit…

  9. Danielle says:

    Is this a global setting for all users on the pc or just for the user that was logged in when it was turned off. If it is not global, is there a way to do it globally?

  10. Danielle, why do you think it’s not global? Did it only turn off for one user? If so I’m not sure of a different way to do it.

  11. Jerry says:

    Thanks a bunch, that was such an easy fix for something so irritating. Glad you were here to help.

  12. Chris says:

    Wow! This helped so much – that bubble notification has driven me crazy ever since our IT put XP on my computer. Thank you!!!!!!

  13. Tim says:

    Thanks much Greg. I had it turned off, but had to reimage the HD, so lost the original setting. Much appreciated!