Icons not hiding in Notification Area

Hey, my inactive icons aren't automatically hiding in the notification area. (You know, where it doesn't show them and you click on a little area to show the other icons.) I definitely have the hide inactive icons box checked in the properties and I have tried rebooting to see if that fixes it. I'm sure that some of the icons are inactive because if I customize one of the icons to always hide, the other inactive icons become hidden as well. However, I don't like the idea of having to always hide one of the icons. Anyone else have this problem or know how to fix it?

 

right click on the taskbar and choose "properties" then click the "customize" box next to the "hide inactive icon" box you checked. Next to every icon is a drop down menu where you can change an icon's status. I don't know why, but XP changes the settings from time to time.

 

Yeah, I know you can do that. They're all on: Hide when inactive, but they don't always hide (when they're inactive). If I put one of those on Always hide, then the other inactive ones will hide, too. However, I don't want any one of my system tray icons to be on Always hide.

 

sometimes they disappear if you hover your cursor on them- they go with a little "pop "! If you check the task manager (right click in task bar) you can tell if the process or application for that icon is still running. If it is, the icon usually still appears visible because it IS in active status. I picked out a few to "always show" and the rest to "always hide" because that way they are all in the same place everyday. Hope this helps.