For last few days, I had been experiencing this strange problem. For some unknown reason, the Homegroup icon keeps reappearing on the Windows desktop every time you login to your user account. This icon usually disappears on its own. You can also right-click on the desktop and choose Refresh from the context menu to refresh the desktop icons and make the Homegroup icon disappear. But this is not a permanent solution and nobody wants to go through this step over and over again. For permanently removing the Homegroup icon from your Windows desktop, you have to disable the displaying of all the network related shortcuts on the desktop.
Here is how you can remove the re-appearing Homegroup icon from your Windows desktop:
- Right-click on the Windows desktop and select Personalize. This will open the desktop personalization section in the Control Panel.
- In the personalization window, select Change desktop icons from the left-side menu displayed in it.
- This will open the Desktop Icon Settings window. Here you have to uncheck the checkbox labeled Network and click on the Apply button. If the Network checkbox is already unchecked, then select it once and click on the Apply button – then uncheck Network once again and click on the Apply button.
- Click on the OK button to save the settings and close all the open windows.
- That’s it. Now you can check by restarting your computer – the Homegroup icon shall no longer bother you again.
Conclusion: The Homegroup icon appearing on the Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 desktop screen can be very annoying but it can be disabled easily using some pretty basic settings from the Windows Control Panel.