Tray Icons Disappearing!

when i boot my computer, usually the Volume Icon loads into the tray and i can access the volume control panel from my system tray. lately when i reboot, the icon is missing from its usual location. i already tried "Customize Notificaions..." and made sure the Volume item is set to "Always Show ", but it still doesnt work. the only way to restore the icon is to go into start > control panel > sound and audio devices.. then uncheck "Place volume icon in the taskbar ", click apply. then REcheck it and click apply again. sometimes, (not as often as the volume icon), this happens to the AOL Instant Messenger Icon. a ctrl + alt + delete to stop the AIM.exe process and then restarting aim manually usually solves the problem for that. how can i stop this from happening?

another related question:
when you right click the time on the winxp taskbar and select "Customize Notifications... ". I have a bunch of duplicate copies in there and also a few things that should be in the other group... can i edit either of the lists "Current Items" and/or "Past Items "? is there a way to delete everything in the list and start over with the current icons?

i would treasure any reply that contains information on this subject or the one above.

 

Run: regedt32

Navigate to the key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify

Then, DELETE the IconStreams and PastIconsStream entries.

It may take 2 reboots to rebuild the reg entries.

 

Abraxas- i deleted those two values. rebooted twice.. the AIM icon appeared right away both times, but the sound volume icon didnt appear either time. i still have to go into control panel to enable it

 

What sound card do you have and how long since checking for a new driver?

Any programs like Total Recorder or any other sound-related programs that load at startup?

 

i have a soundblaster Live! sound card, and i downloaded latest patch from creative.com about a month ago.. the driver hasnt been updated since then.

 

You could try removing all traces of the driver and then reinstalling after a reboot. You should try the full version driver rather than just the patch.

You might try the bootvis tool to optimize loading at startup, too. My thought is that the sound driver is loading slowly or late.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/platform/performance/fastboot/BootVis.mspx

 

removed all traces of the driver then reinstalled after reboot using the full version driver... then the AIM icon started to disappear on reboot as well. i also ran the bootvis optimize option.. boot seems a little faster now but no change in the appearance of the volume control icon. i also noticed something: if i go into the control panel > sound and audio devices properties.. then click speaker volume and click OK i get the following error:

"An exception occurred while trying to run "shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\mmsys.cpl, "

it then wants to send an error report for "Run a DLL as an App ". what does this mean?

i am very lost as to what i can do to correct this problem. its becoming very annoying.

related information: there is a file mmsys.cp_ in my c:\i386 directory thats size and size on disk is 186 KB. the mmsys.cpl in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ is 626 bytes but the size on disk is 4.00 KB.

 

Interesting. shell32.dll contains the volume control icon.

Rundll32 controls the dll apps responsible for control panel settings (among other things).

Try replacing shell32.dll:
Insert your XP CD. Exit if it autostarts.
Go to Start > Run.
Type: expand D:\i386\shell32.dl_ C:\Windows\system32\shell32.dll
(provided D: is your CD-ROM, C: is your system drive, and Windows is your installation folder).

This may seem a little drastic, but have you considered a repair installation? Do you have the full XP CD and have you installed SP1?

This is beginning to look like a different sort of problem than a driver one.