How to remove a "home group" in Windows 7

If, after creating a "home group" ("Home Group", you realized that you do not need it, because you want to easily configure the network somewhat otherwise, feel free to remove it.

How to delete "Home Group"

Remove the "home group" can not, but it will disappear as soon as all devices come out of it. Below are actions that will help you leave the group.

Exit from the "home group"

1. In the Start menu, open the Control Panel.



2. Select "View network status and tasks" from the "Network and Internet" section.



3. In the "View Active Networks" section, click on the "Connected" string.



4. In the open properties of the group, select "Exit Home Group".



5. You will see a standard warning. Now you can also change your mind and not to go out, or change the access settings. In order to leave the group, click "Exit from Home Group".



6. Wait until the end of the procedure and click Finish.



7. After you repeat this procedure on all computers, you will have a window with a message about the absence of a "home group" and the proposal to create it.

Disable service

After removing the "home group", its services will still actively work in the background, and the "Home Group" icon will be visible in the "Navigation panel". Therefore, we recommend that they disable them.

1. To do this, in the search for the Start menu, enter "Services" or "Services".



2. In the "Services" window that appears, select "Home Group" and click on "Stop Service".



3. Then you need to edit the service settings so that it does not start independently when you start Windows. To do this, double click on the name, the "Properties" window opens. In the Start Type Count, select "Disabled".



4. Next, click the Apply button and OK.



5. In the "Services" window, go to the "Home Group Listener".



6. Double-click on it. In "Properties", select the option "Disabled". Click "Apply" and "OK".



7. Open the "Explorer" to make sure the "Home Group" icon disappeared from it.

Removing the icon from the "Explorer"

If you do not have a desire to disable the service, but at the same time you do not want to see the "Home Group" icon every time in the "Explorer" icon, you can simply delete it through the registry.

1. To open the registry, write in the Regedit search string.



2. The window you need will open. You need to go to the section:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ CLSID \ {B4FB3F98-C1EA-428D-A78A-D1F5659CBA93} \ shellfolder



3. Now you need to get full access to this section, since even the administrator does not have sufficient rights. Click the right mouse button on the ShellFolder folder and go to "Permissions" in the context menu.



4. Highlight the Administrators group and check the box in the "Full Access" column. Confirm your actions by clicking "Apply" and "OK".



5. Let's go back to our "ShellFolder" folder. In the "Name" column, find the ATTRIBUTES string and click on it twice.



6. In the window that appears, change the value to B094010C and click OK.

To change the changes to restart the computer or exit the system.

Conclusion

As you can see, the removal of the "Home Group" is a fairly simple process that does not require much time. You have several ways to solve the problem: Delete the icon, delete the "home group" itself or disable the service to finally get rid of this feature. With our instructions, you will handle this task in just a couple of minutes.