Windows 7: SysTray Icons of some programs don't re-appear after Explorer restart

Hi there. I'm wondering why the system tray icons of some programs do not re-appear after restarting Windows Explorer. Examples of programs where this behavior occur are Ditto (clipboard manager) and Magic Disc (virtual optical drive). Note that they are still running, the icons just didn't reappear.

Is this normal? Coz I can't seem to find a working solution to this online. I always set the icons for programs such as those I mentioned to "Show icon and notifications". Help?

Dear ajfudge,
Did you check among the hidden icons which you can open by clicking on the small ARROW in the Task bar? If not, kindly get back.

Regards,
sree

sreedhav,

If you mean the popup system tray icons, yes I did, of course. (I wouldn't be asking about this if I hadn't ). That's where Magic Disc resides, while Ditto is placed outside of that popup beside the flag icon.

-AJ

Welcome
Sounds like the type of problem that a reset would solve, then reboot.
Notification Area Icons - Reset

Prehaps, when you reboot those programs in question, they are not set to automatically run in services. Check the programs in questions to see if they are running in background. Also, look in msconfig startup programs and task manager processes. You could download SystemInternals Process Explorer to futher monitor their behavior. Driver conflicts, viruses, malware, the effects of using registry cleaners, updates, all can cause odd behavior. You could try running the installed troubleshooting programs, or sfc /scannow in the elevated command prompt. Check Device Manager for conflicts, and take a look at Event Viewer for errors. Look in System Information>Components>Problem Devices. Try running msconfig in selective startup; Add and elimate defferent startups and services items as you reboot. One of them may be the one which is interfering with the icons display. There's no easy way to troubleshoot. You've got to keep looking for where it's hiding. Maybe one of these old timers on here knows of a magic button to easily fix, I do not! Bye now!

I'd say that it would not make a difference, if the programs can be run . All the programs you mentioned need not to start up with windows, and need not to run in background always.

Make it sure that you can run the programs when you want to do it. If so, you need not to be worried.

If you want to add them back, you can follow the Method Two of the tutorial Startup Programs - Change (either option , based on your requirement) .

I ran into a similar problem earlier today, after shutting down a game, half of the tray icons has disappeared, but their exes were still listed in the Task Manager. When I tried to reset them via the customize options, it said that the icons were not currently active, but would be displayed again when they were. I didn't dwell on it too much, because it was easier to simply reboot. Nothing else that I thought of seemed to work.

Had a similar problem, perhaps due to the updates?

@quickdraw,
Those programs are set to run on startup. They are also running in the background. I'm just bothered why the icons never re-appear after restarting explorer.

@seekermeister,
Exactly the same thing I'm experiencing. While rebooting fixes this, the reason why I'm bothered by this is I can't access the nifty context menu of those programs which can't be accessed by a hotkey, so when they don't reappear I always have to restart those programs to ensure that I can access them easily. (This is especially true on crucial times that I can't afford to reboot).

@arc,
I can terminate those programs with task manager, and I can run it whenever I want. I added those two to my startup because, well, they're pretty useful to my computing needs.

Please note that my "normal" system tray icons are fine (battery, network, volume, flag). Just some programs I set to stay in system tray.

@richc46,
I don't think it's the updates. I have experienced this since I started utilizing the system tray for programs. Perhaps it's the programs' fault?


Thanks for the insights, guys.

Here's one more. To recover lost/missing system tray icons.

1. Back up the Registry by creating a restore point.
2. Go to Start > Run (or Windows-key + R), type in regedit and hit OK.
3. Navigate to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cla sses\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Wi ndows\CurrentVersion \TrayNotify.
4. Delete the values IconStreams and PastIconsStream.
5. Open up the Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc), go to the Processes tab, select explorer.exe and click End Process.
6. Open the Applications tab and click New Task at the bottom-right of the window.
7. In the message box that pops up type in explorer.exe and hit OK.
8. Explorer.exe will reload, and the missing icons should now be back in the system-tray where they belong.
9. Then if the volume bar isnt there, go to taskbar properties (where the volume was gray) and simply tick the box.