Windows Vista The Great Disappearing Systems Tray Icon Fandango

OK, I know it's a Vista bug, but it is starting to bug me. Apart from re-booting is there any simple way to re-materialise icons that disappear from the systems tray on start up in Vista? I know XP was prone to this as well. Why is it that sometimes the show/hide button is not there on start up? I just started my computer up & saw the Realtek HD audio manager icon was absent. I had to re-boot to bring it back . I don't know why the show/hide thingy isn't there either. I know it comes sometimes after a while. Luckily this is a relatively rare occurrence but it is STILL very annoying!

 

Have you tried deleting two registry keys?

If not, click the Windows Orb (Start), type regedit, press Enter and navigate to registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify.

In the right-pane there are two entries: IconStreams and PastIconsStream, right-click and delete them, then restart the computer. You may have to right-click the Taskbar > Properties > Notification Area and put a tick in any that are missing.

Create a system restore point before deleting the registry keys in case anything goes wrong.

 

Icon if you can ...

OK, cheers for that. I may give it a try.