Notification area icons dissapearing randomly

DustSailor · 30 Dec 2011

Anders,

Sorry, hard to remember everything and sometimes I don't look back at posts (have been helping a number of people today). Are there certain programs that this happens to or is it random? I can't say I have any idea what is causing this, I hide all of my icons and only show the notifications. No program ever shows that I don't want to.

Is there any difference to when you have a lot of programs open (full taskbar) to only a few? Perhaps the full taskbar is pushing the icons to force hide...

What have you done to make your computer more like xp? Have you done any registry editing?

Elvi · 30 Dec 2011

this happens when i boot up the pc, theres been numerous post about similair problems here and around the web that i've tested, 50/50% chance they work and most involves killing and restarting explorer.exe.

no reg hacks, only changed was in that image i posted, aka the left and right area of the taskbar.
that involves the quicklaunch area 7 didn't have, found a post somewhere to get it back with small icons that i'm used to and the full visible notification/taskbar area with the clock, that's it.
i've allready removed icons/programs from there that i don't need.

oh and the notifications area on the right side, it's random what program doesn't show up but the programs are running still, checked in task manager.

DustSailor · 30 Dec 2011

Anders,

I have no clue what is going on then. Google may be your best bet if someone else doesn't pop in here with a solution.

For the quicklaunch, all you did was make the icons smaller (think that setting was in start menu properties), and they are just the pinned programs you have there right? You can add any program you want to that quicklaunch so you wouldn't have to worry about having any programs at all on the right in the notification area, and free it up a bit. I'd leave programs there that I wanted to be notified about stuff and if they have that ability. Something to consider at least.

Hope you manager to figure out whats going on... I've not heard of this problem before.

Elvi · 30 Dec 2011

no the quicklanch isn't 7's orginal one, that only made them smaller but still kept the large space between them, unacceptable, i found somewhere a way to get the orginal quicklaunch going, can't remember where and how now but it looks beter to me than 7's so called quicklaunch

and yes they are the pinned programs that anr't running just the shortcuts, the quicklaunch has nothing to do with the notification area with running apps and i don't need to free any space up there nor the quicklaunch area, they are short as is.

DustSailor · 30 Dec 2011

Anders,

if it was sort of a custom theme that you downloaded, that might be what is causing the problem to begin with. If not, I still don't know what is, and afraid I've come to the short end of my knowledge.

Here is a tutorial on enabling the quicklaunch in Win7, perhaps you used this method: Quick Launch - Enable or Disable

If I right click a program in my "quicklaunch" which are just pinned programs, sometimes extra options are displayed, often similar to the notification system tray. But I understand why you would prefer to have the system tray running, as it may list different options, let you know if a program is running in the background, and display notifications... many of those programs cannot be added to the quicklaunch, and you are right, they function very differently

interesting stuff...

Elvi · 30 Dec 2011

hm it's possible that what was i was looking at when i changed to this xp style quicklaunch, i prefer this one as it takes alot less space and uses small icons :) besides if i want more icons i place them in the >> area of the quicklaunch, i can drag that part and if i do the other icons show or i just press the >> button and they show in a menu heh. exactly the same as in xp.
but thank you for trying to help me, it gets annoying at times when the notification area icons don't load yet the programs load, maybe it's just some update that has gotten the system a litle weird.

DustSailor · 30 Dec 2011

Elvi said:

maybe it's just some update that has gotten the system a litle weird.

If what you have is a downloaded theme or the like, then updates can mess with its looks as it doesn't come standard. But updates are important to have regardless (security, compatability, etc).

Sorry I couldn't help you further!

You might try going into control Panel and seeing if this theme is any good for you, I've never tried it:

Notification area icons dissapearing randomly-notification-areasp.png

Imperfect1 · 02 Jan 2012

Hi Elvi, Welcome to the forum. I occasionally have the same problem with some of my system tray (notification) icons --- the ones that don't show up are usually the same. They're either the Volume icon, the Internet Connection icon, or my Hotmail Messenger icon. None of the 'resets' work for me either, and very frustratingly, when I go to the Taskbar and Start Menu to try to reset them, they don't even show up there. So, I can only offer 2 suggestions, both of which DO work for me. The first is to Refresh the Desktop. If that doesn't work, just turn your computer completely off (shut down, NOT restart), give it a few seconds, and then re-boot. Admittedly, these are not great suggestions, but I haven't found anything else that works for me --- and when I re-boot, the missing icons do reappear.

Elvi · 02 Jan 2012

it's not always the same icons on my end, it's rather random and i know about the restart bit, even just loging out and in again sometimes fixes it till the next time that is but thanks for the tips anyway.