Disappearing icons in SysTray

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First of all, following is my general system information:

• 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium, SP1 — If it makes a difference with anything, the contents of the HS was born in Vista Home Premium, then upgraded to Windows 7, and subsequently SP1. A year or so ago, the entire HD contents were moved to the current PC when Dell gave up on getting the previous PC to work right.
• Dell XPS PC with 1 TB of hard drive, 16 GB of RAM, and a very fast Intel dual processor.

All that said, my problem is that icons “disappear” from my SysTray, or the “notification area” in the lower right corner near the clock. This, despite the fact I have the “Behaviors” set to “Show only notifications.” It is my understanding this means the icon should remain visible in the small window that pops up, but they do not all do that.

Over time, most of them will start to disappear, even though they are set to remain visible, and I cannot figure out why or what I can do about it. Sometimes, rebooting the PC will cause them to set up again (though not very often), but they always disappear again. FWIW, I have a small number of them set to “Show icon and notification” and those correctly remain visible at all times next to the clock on the Taskbar, so it appears to this non-technical user to be some sort of issue with the “Show only notifications” setting itself, because this phenomena only seems to happen when that option is enabled.

Admittedly, this is not a huge issue but it has gotten very frustrating to me because I cannot figure out what has caused the issue or what to do about it. Also, the things I have selected to display in the SysTray are things I use the most, and they cannot be used if they keep disappearing on me. To the best of my memory, I first recall noticing the problem perhaps six or so months ago and prior to then I honestly don’t remember it happening. If anyone has any solutions or suggestions, I would be very grateful hearing from you.

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Try the Microsoft Fixit: System icons do not appear in the notification area in Windows Vista or in Windows 7 until you restart the computer

Bruce

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Try the Microsoft Fixit: System icons do not appear in the notification area in Windows Vista or in Windows 7 until you restart the computer

Bruce

I understand that Bruce, but as I noted in my query my icons do not always appear even then and often disappear later if they do.

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I understand that Bruce, but as I noted in my query my icons do not always appear even then and often disappear later if they do.

That was a link. Have you tried that Fixit?

Perhaps something has changed since this article was written, but if you have the icons set to “show only notification”, then the icons only appear when there is an alert. http://windowssecrets.com/best-practices/take-control-of-taskbar-icon-proliferation/

“… should remain visible in the small window that pops up,” in Post 1 refers to Figure 1 in that article (called “the icon-overflow bin” there).

Bruce

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Bruce, I’ve not checked “that Fixit” yet, I was looking at PamS’s suggestion, but that doesn’t work. My icons spontaneously disappear though, and do not follow my settings in “Customize” either, so even setting the “Behavior” options they not only do not follow the behavior set but also spontaneously change themselves. Very frustrating.

That was a link. Have you tried that Fixit?

“… should remain visible in the small window that pops up,” in Post 1 refers to Figure 1 in that article (called “the icon-overflow bin” there).

Bruce

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Try the Microsoft Fixit: System icons do not appear in the notification area in Windows Vista or in Windows 7 until you restart the computer

Bruce

Okay Bruce, I’ve just tried this and it made no difference whatsoever. I still have icons that do not appear (even when rebooting), so I am still puzzled and even more frustrated.

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Hi Bruce and 3-Star:

Funny thing is that I just ran into the same problem on a fresh install of Win7-32-bit-Sp1 (ISO from TechNet) upgrading my last remaining XP box. The FixIt worked, temporarily, but reverted back to greyed out icon enabling the missing system tray icons. I found a separate article on fixing the Group Policy (http://www.conetrix.com/Blog/post/How-to-Fix-Disappearing-System-Tray-Icons-in-Window-7.aspx) to disable hiding the tray icons (talk about backwards reasoning…!), and that seemed to help. So, I manually ran thru the same steps outlined in the fixit article and the other article SEVERAL TIMES, and saved the registry branch when it worked, but it still is randomly losing the fix. As of this morning, it seems okay, but I’m not confident that its permanently solved on this one. What is strange is that I recently experimented with a Virtual Box install of the same thing and never had a problem. I sure would like to know what is re-setting the thing to broken, so I can turn it off. Good luck, 3-Star on a better fix for you.
Rob

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Thanks for the reply. I’ve received 2 or 3 varying suggestions, plus the Fixit from MS, but I have no clue what to do about it. I was even told by one that it’s supposed to work that way, but if so then why have the icons been staying in place for the last few years until just a few months ago?

Thanks again for responding.

Hi Bruce and 3-Star:

Funny thing is that I just ran into the same problem on a fresh install of Win7-32-bit-Sp1 (ISO from TechNet) upgrading my last remaining XP box. The FixIt worked, temporarily, but reverted back to greyed out icon enabling the missing system tray icons. I found a separate article on fixing the Group Policy (http://www.conetrix.com/Blog/post/How-to-Fix-Disappearing-System-Tray-Icons-in-Window-7.aspx) to disable hiding the tray icons (talk about backwards reasoning…!), and that seemed to help. So, I manually ran thru the same steps outlined in the fixit article and the other article SEVERAL TIMES, and saved the registry branch when it worked, but it still is randomly losing the fix. As of this morning, it seems okay, but I’m not confident that its permanently solved on this one. What is strange is that I recently experimented with a Virtual Box install of the same thing and never had a problem. I sure would like to know what is re-setting the thing to broken, so I can turn it off. Good luck, 3-Star on a better fix for you.
Rob

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Perhaps something has changed since this article was written, but if you have the icons set to “show only notification”, then the icons only appear when there is an alert. http://windowssecrets.com/best-practices/take-control-of-taskbar-icon-proliferation/ The icons appear at all times if you set them to “show icon and notifications”.

Pam

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I will take a look at this and see what I can learn, but I seem to recall seeing it in the recent past right here on this forum.

Perhaps something has changed since this article was written, but if you have the icons set to “show only notification”, then the icons only appear when there is an alert. http://windowssecrets.com/best-practices/take-control-of-taskbar-icon-proliferation/ The icons appear at all times if you set them to “show icon and notifications”.

Pam

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This article will help in navigating to the Icon and Pastlcon Streams referenced in that article http://en.kioskea.net/faq/27246-windows-recover-lost-missing-system-tray-icons

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The steps cannot be followed. Is this information for Windows 7 as I noted, or for Windows 8 as is mentioned at the top of the information? I went to Start> as directed, but there is no Run option from there.

This article will help in navigating to the Icon and Pastlcon Streams referenced in that article http://en.kioskea.net/faq/27246-windows-recover-lost-missing-system-tray-icons

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I don’t see where it says for Win 8 in my link but pressing the Windows key+R keys together will bring up the Run box or you could just type run then press Enter after Start, but in Win 7 from Start, just type regedit in the Search box then press Enter and accept the UAC.

I think the Run box use is more for XP and as this is described as a fix for Windows, you would normally see that step included.

Hope this clarifies.

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Sudo15,

I am grateful to you for trying, but I give up. Following are the 9 steps your link directed me to do, the please continue reading for my explanatory comments:

1. Back up the Registry by creating a restore point.
2. Go to Start > Run (or Windows-key + R), type in regedit and hit OK.
3. Navigate to the key: HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareClassesLocal SettingsSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionTrayNotify.
4. Delete the values IconStreams and PastIconsStream.
5. Open up the Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc), go to the Processes tab, select explorer.exe and click End Process.
6. Open the Applications tab and click New Task at the bottom-right of the window.
7. In the message box that pops up type in explorer.exe and hit OK.
8. Explorer.exe will reload, and the missing icons should now be back in the system-tray where they belong.
9. Then if the volume bar isn’t there, go to taskbar properties (where the volume was gray) and simply tick the box.

I followed every step to the letter, despite the fact it made me very uncomfortable tampering with the registry. I had a very bad experience some years ago doing that and following similarly vague (and wrong, as it turned out) directions and I wound up having to hire a professional to partially fix the registry.

In a few words, I finally nervously made it through line items 1 through 8, but I call your attention to the latter half of #8 which reads “. . . .and the missing icons should be back in the system-tray where they belong.” SHOULD be? What if they are not, because in my case they definitely were not and still aren’t now after I’ve restored my system using System Restore.

Now then, let’s talk about line item 9, which reads in part “Then if the volume bar isn’t there, . . .” Isn’t WHERE?. I never have and still do not see anything resembling a “volume bar,” whether it is labeled or not, so for that reason I did not do step 9. At that point, in my frustration (and now anger) I checked my icons in the SysTray and found less than half of them than I had before I did steps #1-#8 and had to skip #9 for reasons mentioned above.

I then reverted back to the restore point mentioned in line 1, and that is where I am now. . . .with fewer icons than I had before I followed the directions above. :-([/QUOTE]

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The Volume bar is what you get when you click on the Speaker icon when it is displayed but I couldn’t find any box to check for it in Properties, so didn’t understand what it meant by that either.

Other than step #9, that article is the same as the one linked by BruceR, but BruceR’s link goes onto to say that if they still don’t display, then contact MS but re-reading your opening post, an icon such as for the Action Center will display on boot but will fade if nothing is amiss and any other icon that is set to just Only show Notifications will either not display or fade after boot, although some programs will place a small icon to the right when active such as Win Patrol or SuperAntiSpyware which are two that I know of.

The only other ones that will remain are those set to Show icon and notifications, so unless I’m missing something in your opening post, then I’d say that you had them set to default settings and are displaying as they should.

To test this, change the Only show notifications to Show icon and notifications on the ones that you think should be there all of the time and if they still disappear, then you do have a problem.

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Sudo15,

That’s been the problem that makes it so frustrating, all the conflicting and/or vague instructions that at least so far don’t work. I will just leave it like it is I guess, and learn to live with it. No other option at this point that I can see.

The Volume bar is what you get when you click on the Speaker icon when it is displayed but I couldn’t find any box to check for it in Properties, so didn’t understand what it meant by that either.

Other than step #9, that article is the same as the one linked by BruceR, but BruceR’s link goes onto to say that if they still don’t display, then contact MS but re-reading your opening post, an icon such as for the Action Center will display on boot but will fade if nothing is amiss and any other icon that is set to just Only show Notifications will either not display or fade after boot, although some programs will place a small icon to the right when active such as Win Patrol or SuperAntiSpyware which are two that I know of.

The only other ones that will remain are those set to Show icon and notifications, so unless I’m missing something in your opening post, then I’d say that you had them set to default settings and are displaying as they should.

To test this, change the Only show notifications to Show icon and notifications on the ones that you think should be there all of the time and if they still disappear, then you do have a problem.

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Sudo15,

That’s been the problem that makes it so frustrating, all the conflicting and/or vague instructions that at least so far don’t work. I will just leave it like it is I guess, and learn to live with it. No other option at this point that I can see.

Which icons do you have remaining and which icons have disappeared or fail to remain ?

On boot up I have the Action Center flag, the icon customize arrow, Battery, Wifi bars, speaker icon and clock with the Action Center flag fading because of no issues.

Those remaining after the flag has faded are the only ones I have set to Show icon and notifications and any others that pop up later will be to alert me to a problem as they are set to Only show notifications.

Check the settings for those you wish to remain displayed in the system tray and if they still disappear when set to Show icon and notifications, then see if running a system file check reports anything amiss.

To do this go Start, type cmd then right click on cmd.exe and select Run as administrator.

Click on Yes when the UAC pops up and enter the command sfc /scannow which will take ~20mins to run and let us know what it reports.

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Hi Decann:

Don’t give up all hope. Yes, the instructions are sometimes too vague, but with a little imagination one can usually find the right approach. I must admit that I, too, did not have success in regaining the missing tray icons on my old but newly upgraded XP-to-Win7-32-bit machine, and it bugged me enough that I decided to reinstall Win7 to see if that fixed whatever it was that kept re-setting things so the tray icons would not stay visible, and enabled. It was quite time consuming on my old PC, but ended up worth it. I used an older DVD that I had made of the Win7-Pro-Sp1-32-bit disc, and invoked it from within Win7 (using Win-Explorer and double-clicking on Setup.Exe on the DVD). It didn’t come up with a “Repair” option, but did let me choose to “Upgrade” (odd, since it was the same version and SP, but so be it), which is exactly what I did. Now, several hours later and after having to re-do all the 140 windows updates offered, I have the tray icons as they should be and all looks good, even after more than one power-off shutdown (which was where I kept losing the tray icons the last few days). The reason it took so long on my old PC was that I kept having the CPU at 100% — old Celeron 1.7Ghz CPU. But all’s well that ends well. I have my “spare emergency PC” up and running the way it should be, with the network icon and sound/speaker icon in the tray where they belong.

Just thought you might be interested. Best wishes on getting your system to BE your system!

Rob

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I think I’ve given up getting this resolved, unless something jumps out and makes itself known to me. It really isn’t a major issue, just a rather annoying one to me because it frustrates me that I cannot figure it out. I’m an old (71) retiree now who spends more time at this computer than is idea these days, and minor or otherwise I just don’t like knowing something is amiss. A good friend of mine spent her second FOUR AND A HALF HOUR SESSION on the phone with McAfee only yesterday while they removed her entire suite of AV and firewall software MANUALLY ONE FILE AT A TIME in order to ensure a clean reinstallation afterwards, so just to put my situation into perspective it is trivial compared to what she has been through in the last week.

I thank you and all of the others for your effort to help me, it is greatly appreciated. Maybe if I ever upgrade to Windows 9 (I don’t trust or like Windows 8) this will fix itself by default, but that is another story for another day.

Hi Decann:

Don’t give up all hope. Yes, the instructions are sometimes too vague, but with a little imagination one can usually find the right approach. I must admit that I, too, did not have success in regaining the missing tray icons on my old but newly upgraded XP-to-Win7-32-bit machine, and it bugged me enough that I decided to reinstall Win7 to see if that fixed whatever it was that kept re-setting things so the tray icons would not stay visible, and enabled. It was quite time consuming on my old PC, but ended up worth it. I used an older DVD that I had made of the Win7-Pro-Sp1-32-bit disc, and invoked it from within Win7 (using Win-Explorer and double-clicking on Setup.Exe on the DVD). It didn’t come up with a “Repair” option, but did let me choose to “Upgrade” (odd, since it was the same version and SP, but so be it), which is exactly what I did. Now, several hours later and after having to re-do all the 140 windows updates offered, I have the tray icons as they should be and all looks good, even after more than one power-off shutdown (which was where I kept losing the tray icons the last few days). The reason it took so long on my old PC was that I kept having the CPU at 100% — old Celeron 1.7Ghz CPU. But all’s well that ends well. I have my “spare emergency PC” up and running the way it should be, with the network icon and sound/speaker icon in the tray where they belong.

Just thought you might be interested. Best wishes on getting your system to BE your system!

Rob

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My Win7 laptop started displaying (er, not displaying) this behavior a couple months ago. A couple years ago I had a XP machine that did this, and I found a nice .bat file that fixed it; but no good for Win7. If you Google this enough, you can find dozens of fixes, which I did, and tried ’em all to no avail. I even put Glary Utilities and a couple other “maintenance” and “clean-up” progs to work, defragged the HD, and checked for viruses and trojans, etc. A couple weeks ago the problem went away, and the pertinent icons are now behaving properly. I’m inclined to think one of MS’s Tuesday updates messed it up, and maybe a later one fixed it. Or, maybe one of the fixes I tried took hold and I didn’t notice right away. Wish I could tell you a definitive cure but, although the symptoms are the same, there doesn’t seem to be a single cause; and definitely not a single cure that works for everybody. Just keep up hope and, with luck, one of the cures you try will be the right one for your machine.

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Did you try the system file check with the command sfc /scannow as I’d described in my last post ?

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Sudo15,

No. As I mentioned earlier, after so many other possible solutions that don’t seem to work I have trying for awhile. I am not a technician, and tampering with the registry makes me very nervous when I am experimenting like this, so I have decided to just leave it as is until and unless something comes along with a more credible chance of success. Thank you for your help and suggestions.

Did you try the system file check with the command sfc /scannow as I’d described in my last post ?

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