Small Icon Tray

I'm running Windows XP Home Edition w/SP2 on a IBM Thinkpad 600X, which is hand-me-down within the family (and no, not one the New Jersey or New York "families" . . . ).

I've noted that the Icon Tray on the laptop does not seem to have the option to Show Hidden Icons, like my Dell Latitude (running Windows Professional). I've tried to "expand" the Icon Tray to display the other active and inactive icons, using the Properties setting, which takes you to Taskbar and Start Menu Properties. The Hide Inactive Icons box is checked and under Customize, more than just two of the icons that do display (other than the date/time), are selected as Always Show. I've made changed and applied them and even restarted the laptop, but no more than two icons ever display in the Icon Tray - and the tray seems to lack the properties to display inactive icons. Is there some menu setting (that's hiding elsewhere) not toggled properly?

 

Sounds like you've covered the built-in switches already, try these trouble-shooting tips and apps from Kelly's Korner
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_n.htm#na

 

It appears the cache for your tray icons may be corrupt, or full of icons no longer in use. There is a method for cleaning this out. Copy and paste the following in the grey box below into Notepad. Then Save As "Tray.Reg ", then doubleclick the file, you should be prompted as to if you want to merge it into the registry.
When that is done, press CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up the Task Manager. Click on the Processes tab, locate Explorer.Exe, highlight it, then click on End Process. When this is done, your entire desktop is going to disappear except for the Task Manager. Then in Task Manager, go to File, and select Run, type in Explorer.Exe and press Enter. Your desktop will reappear, or you can simply reboot instead of ending the Explorer.Exe.
It will take a bit of time before the Tray Icons begins working (Active and Inactive) as it needs to build itself up again, maybe 30 minutes to an hour, but all the icons will be visible.

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify]
 "PastIconsStream "=hex:
 "IconStreams "=hex: