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Systray icons missing after SP2 installation

Discussion in 'Windows XP' started by JSS3rd, 2004/12/09.

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  1. 2004/12/09
    JSS3rd Lifetime Subscription

    JSS3rd Geek Member Thread Starter

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    I run XP Pro on two computers, desktop and laptop, with nearly identical configurations. I am the sole user of each computer, so they are configured to boot directly into Windows (Classic display). I run a number of background programs at startup, which give me 14 icons in the Notification Area (System Tray/Systray) on the desktop and 16 on the laptop (see attachment). I don't hide inactive icons, because I want to see what background programs are running at any given time, as I occasionally turn one or more off.

    About two months ago I installed SP2 on my laptop computer and, after rebooting, noticed that most of the icons normally displayed in the Systray were missing (see attachment). When I opened Task Manager, all programs with missing Systray icons were listed on the Processes tab, so the programs did load at startup ... only their Systray icons were missing.

    At some point, for some unknown reason, I logged off and back on and, lo and behold, all Systray icons appeared.

    I had begun to think that this is normal system behavior after SP2 installation, except that I haven't seen a single comment from others on the BBS, nor can I find any mention of it on the MS website. A Google search, however, turned up a number of sites, with numerous postings about this subject. Many were related to one specific program or another, and many others related the same experience I've had. No one seems to have a good answer.

    So, I would like to know if other BBS users have experienced this problem (it seems to be more prevalent with laptops than with desktops), and if any of our "smarter than the average bear" gurus has any thoughts on the subject.

    Addendum ...

    I should have added that this happens every time I boot the computer.
     
    Last edited: 2004/12/09
  2. 2004/12/09
    balo

    balo Inactive

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    This worked for me and returned an Icon that disappeared from the Systry after the SP 2 download. It also resulted in a faster Bootup time.


    The Fix...

    Under Control Panel/Performance and Maintenance/System/Advanced, Click the Settings button under "Startup and Recovery ".

    Click the Edit button under "System Startup" to edit the boot.ini file in Notepad.

    Change /NoExecute=OptIn to /NoExecute=AlwaysOff

    Save the boot.ini file and "OK" your way out of there.

    Reboot you computer.

    If you go to Control Panel/System/Advanced/Performance/Settings/Data Execution Prevention, the DEP setting will be grayed out.
     
    balo,
    #2

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  4. 2004/12/09
    JSS3rd Lifetime Subscription

    JSS3rd Geek Member Thread Starter

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    Balo ...

    Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, it didn't change a thing and, in fact, my computer booted more slowly than usual.
     
  5. 2004/12/10
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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  6. 2004/12/10
    Larry R

    Larry R Inactive

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    This is a well known phenomena and if you do a Google search you will find numerous posts regarding the problem. You will probably find that he programs are loading, but not the associated systray icons. I have a similar problem and have tried all of the "fixes" that were suggested, but the only one that seems to work for me is to load "systray.exe" at bootup. Place a shortcut to that file in your Startup folder and that should do the trick.

    Apparently, the problem has something to do with the bootup sequence for the systray icons and systray.exe. You will also note that if you Log Off (not reboot) and log back on you should get all your icons. Let us know if that works for you. Larry
     
  7. 2004/12/10
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    OLDSALTY Inactive

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    I also tried this and it slowed the reboot process and made no difference to my TSR icons.
    Larry suggested that we log off and back on, this work and all 12 of my TSR icons were there. Now how can we get it to work from boot up. Putting a systray icon in the Startup folder seems like a kludge to me.
    I forgot to say I have a desktop.
     
    Last edited: 2004/12/10
  8. 2004/12/10
    Larry R

    Larry R Inactive

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    I would agree that loading "systray.exe" at bootup is not the most elegant solution, but it does seem to work, unlike all other "solutions" I have tried. Larry
     
  9. 2004/12/10
    JSS3rd Lifetime Subscription

    JSS3rd Geek Member Thread Starter

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    Pete ...

    Not by name, at least that I'm aware of. I originally set up XP to load without a password, and the only time I ever see a logon screen is 1) when I log off and back on (when I'm required to click on my username) or 2) when I boot into Safe mode, when I choose either my settings or the Administrator settings (which loads XP's default settings, as I've deleted the Administrator folder from C:\Docs & Settings).

    Larry ...

    From my initial post ...
    "A Google search...turned up a number of sites, with numerous postings about this subject. "

    "I logged off and back on and...all Systray icons appeared. "
    Unfortunately, your suggested fix, placing a shortcut to systray.exe in my Startup folder, doesn't work for me. The only thing that does, and I've used it since day one of the problem, is to log off and back on.

    I just noticed that this thread has been moved to the Service Pack 2 subforum. Probably not a bad idea, as I'm firmly convinced that the problem of the missing Systray icons was caused by the installation of SP2 on my laptop.

    I should mention, though, that a number of posters on the XP forum at Annoyances.org express the opinion that the problem is not SP2 related, and others feel that it seems to affect laptops more than desktops.

    I haven't yet installed SP2 on my desktop, and I'm not sure I'm going to. In fact, I'd uninstall it from my laptop, if only to see if the Systray icon problem is resolved, if I could, but that's no longer possible.
     
  10. 2004/12/10
    Larry R

    Larry R Inactive

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    My ONLY fault is not reading things before I act. :D Maybe MS will admit there is a problem and put out a fix one day. Holding breath.
     
  11. 2004/12/10
    JSS3rd Lifetime Subscription

    JSS3rd Geek Member Thread Starter

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    Larry ...

    Yeah, I think many of the mistakes we make in life could be prevented by simply RTFQ.

    The first place I went while researching this problem was Microsoft's website, but could find no information, whatsoever.

    A fix would be nice, but I'll get by until one comes along. In the meantime, I have one computer with SP1, one with SP2, and I see little difference between them, since the SP1 computer has all MS security patches/updates installed.
     
  12. 2004/12/10
    Samuel10

    Samuel10 Inactive

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    Jim

    I had the same problem, but it was intermittent ... after SP2
    One time on reboot 3 of 18 would be shown the next reboot maybe ten would show , next time 5 would show. Like you, I checked to see if the progams were loading on startup and they were but no tray icon. I could see a error message in the event viewer , something about unable to produce " the shell icon" .....

    After running RFA ( Registery First Aid) a couple of times it got all well again !

    Hope this helps !

    Sam
     
  13. 2004/12/11
    charlesvar

    charlesvar Inactive Alumni

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    Hello Samuel,

    After running RFA ( Registery First Aid) a couple of times it got all well again !

    One for Registry cleaners :)

    Can you pinpoint the reg entries by any chance? RFA keeps a backup by date in it's Program Files folder /Backups.

    Regards - Charles
     
  14. 2004/12/11
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    OLDSALTY Inactive

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    Well I put systray.exe in the startup folder and there was no difference. The only way I get the icons is to logoff and back on.
     
  15. 2004/12/13
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    OLDSALTY Inactive

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    After I realized that I am not alone in this quest for systray icons I did some extensive research.
    I have come up with something that has helped. I got all but one of my icons back.
    I ran 'msconfig' then in the startup tab I 'disabled all' then clicked OK then restart. Then when it came back after reboot I opened the startup tab again and 'enabled all', OK then restart. Voilà!
    Another very good resource can be found here!
     
  16. 2004/12/13
    JSS3rd Lifetime Subscription

    JSS3rd Geek Member Thread Starter

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    Ron ...

    Thanks for the link, as one of the suggestions mentioned there solved my problem.

    In a nutshell ...
    1. Open Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs.

    2. In the sidebar, click on Add/Remove Windows Components.

    3. Scroll down to Networking Services, select it, and click the Details... button.

    4. Uncheck UPnP User Interface.

    5. OK your way out, close Add/Remove Programs, and reboot.​
    All tray icons should appear normally, without the need to log off and back on.
     
  17. 2004/12/14
    BenMcDonald[MS]

    BenMcDonald[MS] Inactive

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    Jim,

    This phenomenon may be the result of the shell (explorer.exe) crashing. Icons in the tray are placed there by other applications running, and those applications are responsible for putting them back if something bad happens to the shell. Based on your description, i beleive this is what is happening to you, and you have several applications that are not properly reinserting themselves following an explorer crash.

    You can see this phenomenon for yourself. Get your machine to display all your icons, then open task manager and End Process on EXPLORER.EXE. It should auto restart (if not, just File->New Task->explorer) and you should see your limited set of icons.

    An easy way of figuring out if you are having this problem is to enable success auditing for Detailed Process Tracking from the Administrative Tools->Local Security Policy MMC snapin. (see attached screenshot)

    Enable it, reboot and reproduce your broken scenario. If explorer is crashing, then you will see two seperate events for EXPLORER.EXE being created, and you know the scenario i suspect is in fact whats going on.

    If this is your problem, then we need to figure out the reason explorer is crashing. This should be pretty striaghtforward, since you've already isolated it a bit. UPNP is a service that injects information about your network devices into your 'My Network Places' shell folder (read more here). So, using some logic, the crash is occuring as a result of something being detected on your network and when UPNP tries to create the icon for the device, its causing a crash in explorer.exe. Thats about as far as we can go on logic.

    We can guess that you have a device that has a custom shell extension that loads when the event fires, and this shell extension has a defect that violates the DEP rules that XPSP2 enforces. It could be something else, like a busted classID in the registry.. Its hard to say for sure without data.

    Try out my recommendation for testing, see if you are getting 2 explorers launching. Also look at your DrWatson log for exceptions, and if this is whats going on, a user.dmp will be required to investigate the root cause of the crash.

    edit: forgot to add screenshot
     
    Last edited: 2004/12/14
  18. 2004/12/16
    Becros52

    Becros52 Inactive

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    JSS3rd

    Hey Jim---

    I have been following your thread on the M.I.A. icons in the tray.
    I have had the same problem. I applied your suggested fix and it corrected my problems. Thanks so much for bringing the subject up.
    Bill
     
  19. 2004/12/16
    JSS3rd Lifetime Subscription

    JSS3rd Geek Member Thread Starter

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    Hi Bill,

    That's the kind of feedback we like to see! :D

    Glad to hear it worked for you, too.

    Read Ben McDonald's post carefully and, if you can, try his suggestions. I think he's on the right track with his theory about Explorer crashing during startup, although I haven't had the time to verify it.
     
  20. 2004/12/19
    JohnR

    JohnR Inactive

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    Thought I would add my 2 cents worth. :)

    I too was having the same problem. Programs would actually be loaded, but some icons in the systray would not be displayed.
    I applied the "Uncheck UPnP User Interface" in the "Add/Remove Windows Components" and so far so good.

    In my case though, it didn't seem that explorer was crashing as Ben explained. Normally when explorer crashes, the taskbar and desktop icons would disappear briefly and reload. DrWatson log was clean.
    It seemed like the icons didn't get the process time to display. That's just my theory. I could be completely wrong. :)

    As a final note, I'm not sure if SP2 caused this. I installed SP2 when it was released and haven't had a problem. This missing icons in the systray started just last week. But then again, this never happened before SP2 either. :)
     
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