Personalization Enable or Disable Notification Badging for Microsoft Accounts on Start menu in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable showing notification badging for Microsoft accounts on the Start menu and Settings for your account in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Starting with Windows 11 build 22621.1928, Microsoft rolled out notification badging for Microsoft accounts on the Start menu.

Starting with Windows 11 build 22631.2792 Microsoft rolled out account-related notifications for Microsoft accounts on the Settings homepage. A Microsoft account connects Windows to your Microsoft apps. The account backs up all your data and helps you manage your subscriptions. You can also add extra security steps to keep you from being locked out of your account. This feature displays notifications across the Start menu and Settings. You can manage Settings notifications in Settings > Privacy & security > General.

Starting with Windows 11 build 26100.8973 (24H2), build 26200.8973 (25H2), and build 28000.2804 (26H1), this update refreshes the design of the Start menu account control and adds a badge that displays your subscription status. To view your account control, open the Start menu and select your account picture in the lower-left corner. This experience is available for users signed in with a Microsoft account.

Even when Show account-related notifications is turned off, required notifications are still shown.

EXAMPLE: Notification badging for Microsoft accounts on the Start menu

You may see account-related notifications when you open the account picture menu on Start.

1 Open Settings (Win+I).

2 Click/tap on Personalization on the left side, and click/tap on Start on the right side. (see screenshot below)



3 Under Other settings, turn On (default) or Off Show account-related notifications for what you want. (see screenshot below)


4 You can now close Settings if you like.

This option will not work when Administrator protection is turned on.

1 Do step 2 (on) or step 3 (off) below for what you want.

This is the default setting.

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.



(Contents of REG file for reference)


A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.



(Contents of REG file for reference)

4 Save the .reg file to your desktop.

5 If you have Smart App Control turned on, you will need to unblock the downloaded REG file.

6 Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

7 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

8 You can now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.





1 Open Registry Editor (regedit.exe).

2 Navigate to the key location below in the left pane of Registry Editor. (see screenshot below step 3)

Substitute <SID> in the key path above with the actual SID for the account you want to apply this to.

For example:
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-2498639629-3946114050-4100787084-1001\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

3 In the right pane of the Advanced key, double click/tap on the Start_AccountNotifications DWORD to modify it. (see screenshot below)


4 Enter 0 (off) or 1 (on - default) for what you want, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)


5 You can now close Registry Editor if you like.


That's it,
Shawn Brink