Turn Off Notifications in Windows 8

Windows 8 introduces a different type of notification compared to what you saw in previous versions of Windows. You see a small rectangle pop up with a message. These messages may be from different applications you have installed, and you can set those permissions individually. However, all notifications use the same appearance style. Figure 1 below, shows an example of such a notification. This one is from Skype, which frequently shows these pop ups to indicate if any of your contacts has signed in, or if they sent you a text message (as shown in Figure 1).

While these notifications may be helpful in most scenarios, they can be irritating and even embarrassing when showing your PowerPoint slides to an audience. There is no way PowerPoint can automatically disable them while in slide show view. Fortunately, there is a way to disable them temporarily, and you should remember to do so each time you need to show a presentation!

Figure 1: Skype notification

Follow these steps to turn off the notifications in Windows 8:

1. Access the Charms bar by pressing Windows + C or moving your mouse to the bottom right of the screen and slowly moving the mouse up. When the Charms bar appears, click the Settings option (highlighted in red within Figure 2).
2. 
   Figure 2: Settings option within the Charms bar
2. This brings up the Settings menu, as shown in Figure 3. Here, click the Notifications option, highlighted in red within Figure 3.
3. 
   Figure 3: Notifications option selected
3. You will be prompted with a pop up menu, as shown in Figure 4. Within this pop up menu, you'll find options to hide notifications for a certain number of hours such as: Hide for 8 hours, Hide for 3 hours, or Hide for 1 hour.
4. 
   Figure 4: Notifications pop up menu
4. Select the desired duration for which you want to hide the notifications. As soon as you select any of these duration options, notice that the Notification icon gets grayed out, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 5 (compare with Figure 4, above).
5. 
   Figure 5: Changed Notifications icon
6. The notifications will stop appearing for your selected duration.