Tray icons (WinXP SP1)

Topic

New Reply

Weird stuff happening with the tray on my system.

Applications that run out of the tray are not showing up there. But the apps ARE running in the system. In the capture below, the top part is everything showing in my tray. The part below that is segment of what is actually running in my system. The apps highlighted in yellow should show in the tray but don’t (they did before). These hidden apps work fine but I can’t control all of them if I can’t get to their tray icon.

I’ve messed around with “Taskbar | Properties | Hide inactive icons” checkbox, turning it off and on (currently not checked). I’ve turned it on and tried to set the individual apps to “Always show”. Nothing seems to work. I think the task bar control for showing icons may be broken. Anyone else experiencing this problem?

Reply | Quote

Replies

Oh yeah! The dammmnnned tray icons are as fickle as a mare in heat! Mine keep changing all the time. I don’t know if anyone has a solution for this problem either. I keep setting the Hide or Show properties and they change at will. Sorry!

Reply | Quote

I use the Classic Start Menu with show small items in the start menu. I customised the Notifactions and set each item to ‘Always hide’ or ‘Always Show’ except for the Internet Connection Icon which I set to ‘Hide when inactive’. I don’t know if physically setting every icon helps or not but I’ve had vrey little trouble with disappeaing icons. I don’t like the Tray resizing itself so fixing the settings seems to work for me.

Hope this helps,

Chris (Hunt)

Reply | Quote

To this day (knock on wood) I have NOT had any problems with the Systray icons, even during all of the beta builds I ran. I am using the Classic mode, and have all of the auto hide and/or removal turned OFF.

I have 11 items (icons) shown and they all work.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

Reply | Quote

I found this in the MS KB. I will try and lock the toolbar and see what happens.

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article – 321213

Icons in the Notification Area May Disappear If You Use High-Contrast Color Themes in Windows XP

The information in this article applies to:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

SYMPTOMS
If you are using the Windows Classic theme in Windows XP, the icons in the notification area on the right side of the taskbar may disappear when you select a High Contrast scheme in the Color Schemes box on the Appearance tab.

RESOLUTION
To work around this problem, right-click a blank area of the taskbar, and then click Lock the Taskbar. Or, change the size of the taskbar, and then restore it.

STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

MORE INFORMATION
For additional information about configuring desktop themes in Windows XP, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

307855 HOW TO: Configure Desktop Themes in Windows XP

For additional information about moving or resizing the taskbar in Windows XP, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

279774 Cannot Move or Resize the Taskbar or Any Toolbars on the Taskbar

Reply | Quote

Locking the taskbar didn’t do anything to solve the problem.

But, and this is really weird, I’ve discovered that if I log off the account and back on again, all the proper icons show up in the tray. However, if I reboot, I’m back where I started with a good number missing. Anyone see any connections?

I’m thinking I will have to try refreshing my system. Some kind of record for me – clean installed 1 week ago! What will I lose if I do a repair? Is that the best approach?

Reply | Quote

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t re-install the OS for something like this problem with the Tray. I’m in a boat similar to yours. I set all the icons in the Tray to Alway Show, Always Hide, etc. and sooner or later one or more of them changes. Annoying but not worth a re-install to me.

Reply | Quote

Are you using the “Auto login” method, where your default account comes up on start up?

If so try turning this off and run doing a manul login for a while.

I agree with BigAl, do not do a reinstall unless it is a Clean one, but you may try a “Repair” if you feel you really need to try this.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

Reply | Quote

No, not using autologon.

Since the OS is only 1 week old, refreshing the system shouldn’t really be that big of a problem. All the apps should stay installed, only the OS files will be refreshed and I might lose some OS options that have to be reset. But there is no guarantee that this will work to fix the problem.

Reply | Quote

A programmer friend told me today that apps running the tray have to register themselves with Explorer at boot time to show in the tray. If they don’t do this correctly, then the app may not show. An example he used is when Explorer blows up (common in Win98) you’d lose the tray icons until you rebooted. He thinks that there could be a timing issue during bootup or my Exploer might be corrupt.

Reply | Quote

Remember from original post that I am missing icons in the tray on a full reboot (but the apps are running). If I immediately do a logoff/on, all the icons show up in the tray.

I’ve discovered that the icons that do not show in the tray on the the full boot are all in a start|programs|startup folder that has been relocated out of the standard C:Documents & Settingsusername…. location. I know 2 registry locations where the location of the startup folder is specfied:

1. HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerUser Shell Folders
2. HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerShell Folders

I have changed both of these. In fact, every reference in these 2 keys has been changed to point to locations on my D: drive. Anyone know of another location I am missing?

I’ve been able to delete every other folder in C:Documents and Setingsusername… EXCEPT for C:Documents and SettingsusernameStart Menu. Windows won’t allow to me to do this (even though it is completely empty). I get this message:

“Start Menu is a Windows system folder and is required for Windows to run properly. It cannot be deleted”. This usually indicates that there is somewhere/something else in the system that has a hold on this folder and is locking me out.

So it is starting to look like WinXP takes a different path on a full reboot vs. a re-logon. On full reboot, it doesn’t look at my alternate startup folder location. It only looks at the C:Documents & Settingsusername location. But on logoff-on, Windows does look at the correct version also. This didn’t happen in Win2k, so something has changed with WinXP.

Reply | Quote

You did NOT state that you had MOVED the D&S to a different drive. You have just opend up to another world. There are some subfolders that can de MOVED and other that can NOT be moved.

I think you are seeing reasons for NOT moving the D&S folders. If I remember right, that even in Windows NT3.0 -4.5, when using a roaming profile, a copy of system required folders and files were copied on to each machine that I logged into.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

Reply | Quote

“I think you are seeing reasons for NOT moving the D&S folders. If I remember right, that even in Windows NT3.0 -4.5, when using a roaming profile, a copy of system required folders and files were copied on to each machine that I logged into.”

One, things have changed since NT, so you can’t go by that. Two, I don’t use a roaming profile. Roaming is turned off. Three, I should be able to put my data wherever I choose to. Period. Restricting yourself to “supposed and undocumented” software limitations is counter-intuitive and stupid. In this case, leaving your custom settings at the default C: drive location exposes you to data loss and time-consuming re-configuration should you have to reinstall the OS. That is why I have relocated all my personal settings since Win98. I didn’t have any problems doing this with Win98 or Win2k. But I do have a problem with WinXP.

Reply | Quote

I don’t want to cause a debate here, since it seems you’re already experienced with tweaking the registry, but I think you’re on thin ice with whatever you’ve done, whether you did it by dragging, TweakUI or whatever. Ever since MS started “hardcoding” My Documents, My Music, and so on, I’ve just ignored them and set all my apps to use a D:Data Store directory of my creation. So, all my own generated “critical” data is put where I choose, with the possible exception of my browser profile and a few things like that.

“…leaving your custom settings at the default C: drive location exposes you to data loss…” Ain’t that the truth, but that’s like trying to get Windows to store .INI files someplace other than the system default directory. Maybe it can be done, somehow, but….. Sorry to be on what I know looks like a soapbox, but I haven’t got the foggiest idea how to help you since there’s no way to know EXACTLY what you’ve already done.

Reply | Quote

[indent]

---

I should be able to put my data wherever I choose to.

---

[/indent]Couldn’t agree more – all that remains is to convince Bill .
[indent]

---

Restricting yourself to “supposed and undocumented” software limitations is counter-intuitive and stupid.

---

[/indent]We all make choices, and most of them involve compromise. This is akin to saying that “using MS products is counter-intuitive and stupid” ( may be a grain of truth in there somewhere.) I’ve worked with, and around MS idiosyncracies since they managed to bury CP/M with the inferior MS-DOS (no, I’m not quite that old, just an early adopter ). Part of the deal is that you win some, Bill wins more. You make the best of your end of the deal, or get ulcers & go . Of course you may also throw in the odd , aimed at the right target, safe in the knowledge that MS will probably recover.

I keep glancing over at the freedom of choice in the Linux & Open Office world, but so far can’t see the mileage in switching.

Maybe you are ready for the jump?

Reply | Quote

Well, I was forced to do another complete rebuild of XP from zero due to a solid HAL.DLL error that I couldn’t fix. Now I’ve been able to set exaactly where I want my files to go (D: drive, not C:Documents and Settings) and the tray icons all appear without any problems now. There’s no way to know whta was corrupted originally so that is water over the dam.

Reply | Quote

Reply | Quote

Good to see your problem has disappeared. One thing is not clear to me, however. You state that you have located your data where you want it, on the D drive and not C:Documents and Settings. Does your C:Documents and Settings still exist, or did you move it to D?

Reply | Quote

There are a couple of things left in C:Documents and Settings but most of the usual stuff is now on my D: drive. I haven’t got around to relocating my NTuser.dat and NTUser.ini files yet because that is in another setting than what I list below (and of course it is a different format than the others). There is also an empty DESKTOP folder under my user name that Windows won’t let me delete, even though the real one is on the D: drive.

These are the 3 primary keys that have to be changed. The best way to modify these is to export them into .reg files and modify them in Notepad. Otherwise, it takes too long to do the mods in the registry AND you’ll find that while doing the mods, Windows will periodically reset some or all of the mods [sheese]. Note that when you export keys to a .reg file, there will be “2” backslashes separating each level.

HKEY_USERSSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerShell Folders
HKEY_USERSSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerUser Shell Folders
HKEY_USERS1003Volatile Environment

After completing your mods, save the .reg files. Shut as much down as possible, then run the .reg files (keep them on or shortcut them to the desktop for now). Then reboot. After the reboot, copy the old data into the new locations. Then check the registry to make sure that the locations have stuck. If not rerun the .reg files again and reboot again. I had to do this 3 or 4 times till they stuck.

If the locations get reset in the future or you do a rebuild the system, just rerun the .reg files.

Reply | Quote