SP1 bug?/problem

i recently installed SP1 on my computer, and everything [besides this] seems to be working fine. problem: after installing SP1, the icons in the system tray are missing upon reboot, every single time. i had the volume control icon, and aol instant messenger in there every time i rebooted, but now when i reboot, the task manager says that the programs are running like usual, only their icons wont appear in the tray. the only way to get them to appear is to start the program again. or for the volume icon i have to go into Sounds and Audio Devices in the control panel, uncheck "place volume control icon in taskbar ", click apply, recheck it, and click apply again. only then does the icon appear where it should be all along. i disabled the "hide inactive icons" feature for the taskbar, and even turned it back on and made sure the icons i wanted were set to "always show ". how can i get my tray working again? i tried searching knowledge base and the forums here to no avail. thanks in advance for your help

 

arg this is annoying me

 

This is no real solution, but may help.

Any theme-type programs installed, like StyleXP or WindowBlinds?

There are a few programs that consolidate tray icons into one that also claim to be able to restore tray icons after an explorer crash. They may help. Here's 2 examples:

http://www.systrayx.com/
(I'm trying this one now--so far, so good. It seems to restore tray icons as it should and gives you more control over icons than the XP tray icon hider).

(This one didn't work so well for me. It needed to have an autoexec.nt entry made so it started before any other tray apps, but here it is):

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,9877,00.asp

This one is for 98/ME/NT and is specifically designed to restore tray icons. I don't know how well it will work in XP:

http://www.mlin.net/TraySaver.shtml

 

wow all i did was run clean up then restarted to do a scandisk and the icons were back. restarted again and they seem to be stickign now. wonder what that was about? hah

 

That's great, Ryan. I guess that just reminds us all what a little maintenance will do.
Thanks for letting us know.

 

actually, its back. haha.... the last 3 times i rebooted, the icons were not visable but the programs are running. boy XP can be weird

 

After installing SP1, I had similar problems with icons, part of the desktop super imposed on Control Panel window, the list goes on. I uninstalled SP1 and my new machine is again fast and stable.

I believe it is more than just a coincidence your problems developed immediately after installing SP1.

 

hmm.. uninstalled SP1. still no icons. no sound volume icon, no AIM icon.. nothing. whats the deal here? anyone else having a problem like this?? step forward if so PLEASE

 

Same thing has been happening to me...I will do a system restore and when it reboots from the system restore, the icons are there (except PanicWare pop-up stopper). The next time I reboot, they are gone again. For pop-up stopper, I have to go into task manager and end the process and then manually restart pop-up stopper and the icon is there.

I do have SP1 installed but this problem was not immediate. In fact, it was several weeks after installing it that this started. All the programs that should have icons are running, there are just no icons for them.

I hope someone has the answer!

Thanks, Phil

 

OK, tried the Systray link above...it brought back 2 icons...still missing about 4 or 5...I can start them manually, but that's it!

HELP!

Thanks again....
Phil

 

i just wanted to let you know... i upgraded to windows xp PRO, and the icon problem seems to be getting better, altohugh sometimes the icons still wotn show up after a start up or reboot. very odd thing.. i hope microsoft publishes a support article about it soon, because a few of my friends seem to be having the problem as well. i will check back here soon for any solutions and also post my own as i find them

 

 
Try this.
Run: regedt32

Navigate to:

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

Then, DELETE the IconStreams and PastIconsStream entries.

The first will be rebuilt on reboot, and the second appears to be rebuilt on the second reboot.

 

MS are supposedly attempting to provide a fix for this issue. The solution given by Abraxas should provide a short term solution although, somewhere along the road, the issue probably crop up again. You may wish to to use the following text to make a .reg file which you can run whenever needed:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify]
"PastIconsStream "=-

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify]
"IconStreams "=-

(this file will simply automate the process described by Abraxas).

 

Wouldn't restoring system files and registry to a date preceeding the problem be a temporary fix?

 

It only works for the one time that it reboots after doing the system restore, so it is a VERY temporary fix. The next time you boot, it is back to it's old tricks.

 

Very interesting problem. Has the problem been isolated to SP1?I had an identical situation with icons after installing SP1. Uninstalled and everything was OK.

 

I don't know if it is directly related or not...it seems that in everything I have found out about this, here and elsewhere, people with this problem have had SP1 installed.

 

Not in my case, at least. The problem was much more severe before SP1, as were the explorer crashes that brought on the tray problem.

The problem still occurred after SP1, but not seemingly so often. Then, as mysteriously as it came, the problem disappeared and I have not seen it in a couple months.

Am now running SystrayX which restores most of the tray icons most of the time if I stop explorer in Task Manager and restart it.

One thing I did do recently was to check the box in Folder Properties to launch folder windows in a separate process---then at least a file manager crash doesn't bring the shell with it.

 

What is puzzling is that Abraxas has correctly isolated the problem to the registry entries, and the entries can be correctly rebuilt by deleting and rebooting. There is no confirmation his fix is only temporary. And if temporary, when and under what circumstances does another malfunction occur?

Double911's experience with the restoration procedure corrects the problem until there is another reboot! Indicating Icon entries are not properly modified or stabilized after a restore but require a complete rebuild.

With an SP1 installation, there is some consistency in regard to the problem indicating SP1 is problematic. Apparently there are variables involved and it cannot be shown conclusively a SP1 problem. An uninstall of SP1 stabilized my system.

 

OK...here is what I think is an interesting twist to what KenKeith just said. I do have to do a system restore to get them to work. But let's say for instance I do a reboot without a restore. The two icons that SysTrayX is able to come up do come up and usually ZA will come up also. I shut down and restart everything else to get their icons there. I create another restore point and then I can use it next time. It is not that I have to go to an older date before any of this started. I just have to have all the icons there when I create the restore point.

I realize I seem like I am talking in circles, but my point is that I think the registry is doing the right thing with the icons, just not saving the settings correctly when Windows shuts down. I say this because when you do the restore, Windows goes through its normal shut down and THEN it does the restore, including "restoring your settings ".

I could be way off base here, but I am just searching for ideas.