If you’re a Windows user, you may be familiar with the feature known as “highlighting.” Highlighting is a way to show specific portions of a document or screen to help you quickly find what you’re looking for. Highlighting can be helpful when you’re working on a document that’s large or when you need to quickly find something specific. However, if you’re using Windows 7, Vista, or XP, there’s a good chance that highlighting is disabled by default. This means that if you want to use highlighting in your documents and screens, you’ll need to enable it manually. Here’s how:

  1. Open the Control Panel and click on the “System” tab.
  2. Under “System Options,” click on the “Advanced” tab.
  3. In the “Highlighted Programs” section, select “Yes” when asked if you want to enable highlighter in your documents and screens.
  4. Click on the “OK” button to finish setting up your new settings.

Here we look at an example of the annoyance, notice the tacky highlight over programs that were recently installed.

Disable in Vista & Windows 7

To disable it in Vista and Windows 7 right-click on the Start Menu and select Properties.

The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties screen open and you want to click on Customize.

In the Customize Start Menu screen scroll down and uncheck Highlight newly installed programs, then click Ok.

That’s it! Now you’re free of the annoying highlighting of new programs in the Start menu.

Disable in XP

You can do this in XP as well basically the same way. Right-click on Start \ Properties then make sure Start menu is selected and click Customize.

Then click on the Advanced tab and uncheck Highlight newly installed programs, click Ok and close out of the remaining screens.

If you are new to computers you may not want to disable this feature because it can help you easily distinguish between old and new programs. If you find it annoying, disable it and enjoy a cleaner Start menu.