Turn off, turn on, disable, enable Toast Notifications in Windows 8

Windows users are familiar with the balloon notifications, which one saw in Windows 7 and earlier, near the task bar notification area or system tray. These balloon notifications helped inform users about the happening on their computer. While this was a useful feature, many preferred to change its display time or disable balloon notifications, using the Ultimate Windows Tweaker.

In Windows 8, similar App Toast Notifications appear in the upper right corner of your desktop. Its is via these notifications that the Windows 8 apps communicate with the users. If you wish, you can turn off these notifications. You may change Notifications display time in Windows 8 or you may disable them completely.

Turn On or Off Windows 8 Apps Toast Notifications

You have various options to turn off or turn the toast notifications. To do so, move your mouse pointer to the right bottom corner to show the Charms bar. Click on Settings > Change PC Settings. Here, select Notifications from the left pane.

You can change:

Metro App Toast Notifications on the desktop. This acts like a global switch. If you turn this off or on, all the other types of notifications are turned off.
App Toast Notifications on Lock Screen. If you turn these off, you will no longer see the notifications on your lock screen when you start your Windows 8 computer.
Play notification sounds. If you want the notifications, but do not want the sound to be played, you can turn the sounds off here.
Notifications from individual apps. Windows 8 also gives you the option to turn on or off notifications from individual apps.

Disable Windows 8 Toast Notifications using Group Policy

Using the Group Policy Editor, you can disable option to change these toast notifications. To do so open the Local Group Policy Editor or gpedit.msc and navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar > Notifications.

Now in the right side pane you will see options to:

Turn off notifications of network usage
Turn off Toast notifications on the lock screen
Turn off Tile notifications
Turn off Toast notifications.

Double click on the one/one’s you wish to disable, check Enabled, click Apply/OK.

You will see that the option/s will no longer be offered in the PC Settings!

Temporarily hide Toast notifications

If you wish to temporarily hide these notifications, you can do so via the Charms bar. Move your mouse pointer to the right bottom corner, click on Settings > Notifications.

Here you will be able to hide the notifications 1, 3 or 8 hours. Selecting one, will disable the notifications for that period of time only and the icon will change to reflect the status.