Remove America Online from Your Desktop

If your computer came with AOL pre-installed, you probably see the AOL icon on your desktop every time your computer starts up. To get rid of it, you need to edit your registry.

Remember to back up your registry first though.

1. Go to Start->Run and type in "regedit".
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace.
3. Look for {955B7B84-5308-419c-8ED8-0B9CA3C56985}, which is the CLSID for AOL. Right click it and select Delete.
4. Click Yes at the prompt.

This doesn't remove AOL from your computer, but it does remove the icon. If you want to remove other icons from your desktop like the Recycle Bin and My Documents, just click on each long alphanumeric folder in turn and see what description you see inside. Then right click and select Delete as before.

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