Windows 7: Icons in Action Center messed up!

Running Win7x64 Home Premium on brand new HP Paviliion. When I right click Task Bar, Properties, Task Bar, and click Customize, some icons to the left of those entries are wrong. Task Manager appears twice on the list, once with no icon at all; once with Comodo FW icon. System Information shows the Comodo FW icon. The Canon My Printer icon is gone and I'm sure it used to be there. Windows Explorer shows an Avast icon. Several other programs like Windows Update, HP Advisor also have no icons showing, but can't remember if they EVER had them before or not. Using the tutorial here, I cleared out/rebuilt the icon cache but this weirdness persists.

I've also noticed the little arrow just left of the notification area you can click to to evoke hidden icons has just vanished. Not sure what is causing this or if the two issues are related or not.

Any thoughts or suggestions? If the recommendation is to run sfc /scannow, HP sent no OS disks with this system. I did however make a Repair Disk and the Recovery Disks. Will those work if prompted to insert disk during/after this operation? Or does scannow go get clean file copies from my d: where the restore image resides?

I think that we should be planning how we will make HP make good on this problem, which could be an indication of something bigger. At a minimum they should supply you with a copy of Wind 7 DVD, so you could make the repair properly. Give them a call or visit the store where it was bought. Try to get the Window 7 DVD, they have them.

Hello Buttoni,

You might see if resetting the notification area icons may be able to help with this.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Talked to an HP support Tech on the phone and he said I lost my arrow in the notifications area because I had all Behaviors for icons in the customize screen set to "show". Arrow only appears when some are hidden (makes sense). As soon as I set one to "Hide" the arrow reappeared. Lesson learned.

Those items icons had icons reappear as soon as I opened those programs up. Another lesson learned.

I also hit the Reset Default Icon Behaviors and then I used the Tray Notification Cache feature in CCleaner Dinesh mentioned in that tutorial's replies and that seems to have straightened it all out now. I restarted explorer.exe as CCleaner instructed. The Customize listing is tidied up and shortened now, but all icons appear in the tray that should and notifications are coming in for those set to notify. I'll click the Rep button, too!

Thanks for all replies and for taking the time to help. You folks are much appreciated.

I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted Buttoni. Thank you for posting back your results.

Ty for your kind works and the rep. I am truly glad that you were able to resolve the problem using the suggestions of Brink. His knowldedge and tutorials are a true asset to this Forum, benefitting every member.

That being said, I am glad that you, also, took the time to contact HP. Although it was ultimately discovered that the problems were caused by actions on your part, it was wise to contact them before trying to resolve the problem yourself, and possibly voiding the warranty.

In any event all that is history. I wish you the best of luck and and invite you to return to the forum anytime you have questions or wish to share your knowledge with us.

Enjoy your new computer.