Windows 7: Blank Processes buttons in 7

In the bottom portion, by the clock, a couple of the running processes are missing icons. As you can see in the picture, Windows recognizes that there should be something there, but nothing pops up. Clicking yields nothing, right clicking yields nothing. What's missing is my Dropbox icon, my connections manager (which is built directly into Windows, not even an external application), and...not sure what the last one is.






Any ideas how to fix this? And yes I have 'show icons and notifications' enabled. Disabling and re-enabling doesn't bring back the icons either.

Go to Control Pane > Notification Area Icons and check the box that states alway show all icons and notification on the taskbar.

Hello Ag, and welcome to Seven Forums.

If you have not already, then sometimes logging off and on or restarting the computer will resolve this type of issue.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hello Brink,

You may be right as there is no triangle to show the list of other icons.

I had already clicked for it to show all icons. That was the issue with it not showing the rest of them. They should have been there but weren't.

Logging off fixed it though. Is there a way to prevent it from happening at all? Is it known what causes it to do that?

As you use your computer, things happen, and not good things. Files begin to get corrupted, icons disappear etc. There is no way to prevent such happenings except to use the computer as a paper weight and none of us in this forum wants that.

To correct problems, if possible, it is suggested that at least once a week, you turn off your computer. When it boots up it corrects many of the defects that were created during the previous week.

Finally, with 7 we have an important safety valve. Shortly after installation and programs are installed and you are activated, take a system image, put it away. When you make changes to your programs etc, just write it down. When you have a problem like missing icons or worse, that cannot be corrected. Go to the system image, install it and make the changes that you wrote down. Important, do not make an image of the newly created download, it is not as pure as the one you saved originally. Listen to me and you will always have a perfect or nearly perfect OS.

Finally, enjoy Windows 7, because I know I am. Good luck
Richard