System Tray Icons Not Always Showing

I have WinXP MCE2005 running on a Compaq Presario about 2 years old, and lately I've noticed that the icons that show the speaker, the 'safely remove hardware' and the printer, don't always appear in the system tray. I've checked all the programs involved including control panel and the appropriate commands are clicked -- if I unclick them and then re-click them they will appear until my next reboot and then it will happen again. Also I've unchecked 'Hide Inactive Icons' in the properties area of the task bar. Anybody have any idea why this is happening?

Thanks for any information.

mickey918

 

Try this but create a system restore point first:

Start > Run, type regedit, press Enter and navigate to registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify. In the right-pane there are two entries: IconStreams and PastIconsStream, right-click and delete them, then restart the computer.

 

Thanks for the reply BurrWalnut. I did what you suggested, and it worked for the printer icon, but not for the speaker icon. I checked in Control Panel/Sounds and Audio Devices, and the box is checked for it to place an icon in the task bar. If I uncheck it and then immediately re-check it, it will appear. It used to be there all the time. Also the "safely remove hardware" icon isn't there.

mickey918

 

The speaker icon disappearing has been an error for years.

There's a bit more reading here

 

Go here;
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm
Scroll to line 5 on left:
Restore Safely Remove Hardware Icon.
To use the VBS Files: Download .vbs file and save it to your hard drive (you may want to right click and use Save Target As). Double
click the vbs file. You will be prompted when the script is done.

And then scroll to line 320 on left:
Restore Volume/.................etc.
To use the Regedits: Save the REG File to your hard disk. Double click it and answer yes to the import prompt. REG files can be viewed in Notepad by right clicking on the file and selecting Edit.

mickzer.