Windows 7: WINDOWS 7 PRO 64bit SYSTEM TRAY ICONS MISSING

Dear Friends
The icons that normally appear in the system tray have gone missing. Clock and Wireless icons are there but Battery and Sound Volume (speaker) are missing. I have tried all help available on the net but failed to resolve the issue.
This problem is resolved by using the following method. (Only to come back on next boot.)
Start Task Manager
Under Processes, select explorer exe. END process twice
File New task Run - explorer. Exit Task Manager
Please help to resolve the problem permanently rather than ending the explorer exe and restarting each time I reboot.
Thanks.

Wondering if an update is the culprit. My laptop seems to refuse to connect to my wireless router anymore after I did a Windows update. I reformatted my laptop and did the required system update via windows update after a fresh install and the problem is still occurring. I'm still trying to track down the issue.

Hi krishen and welcome to Windows 7 Forums

Have a look at this Tutorial to see if it helps: System Icons - Enable or Disable

Many thanks for prompt response.
I have copied all the very informative and valuable tutorials and will be implementing the suggestions therein. I will post the response when done. When I started my laptop few minutes ago all the icons were present?
Regarding the suggestion about recent updates causing the problem this is a possibility but I am not a technical person to pin point the culprit update.
Thanks again

Hi Dwarf
I have tried every thing recommended but the problem does not seem to go. Sometimes all appear, sometimes volume, network or power are missing. Is there anything further you can help me with? Thank you. Kind regards

Try this also- Icon Cache - Rebuild

just spotted in response to a similar problem:

- any use..??

Thanks to all the forum members who have responded to my post and for the valuable advice and informative tutorials.
I am now resigned to the fact that there is no permanent/positive solution to tjis problem.

Just to see if it would help....have you done a system restore just to get them working again? From there do individual installs of all recently added programs and updates.
Try this out as well if you have not already...
Taskbar Repair Tool Plus!
The information is from an article posted here...Systray icons missing | Windows Problem Solver

they have this explanation that seems to fit very well as the culprit.

"Main problem and complete solution
The main cause of the more common problem is that the systray program is temporarily unable to process icon inclusion requests. An earlier hypothesis, that systray.exe is loaded too late, has been refuted by Thomas Gregory Platt (see his email below).
According to the excellent analysis in the Problem analysis and proposed solution comment by tasmanian this is caused by a timing defect in the Windows function Shell_NotifyIcon in shell32.dll, which has a timeout fixed at 4 seconds. Combined with an unfavorable Windows API message this causes the problem, which befalls many heavily loaded computers that don't have ultra-fast hard disks. Changing the timeout to one minute and removing the unwanted message solves the problem, and in the Complete solution comment user depassp has perfected the procedure of patching shell32.dll to solve the problem, at least until a new version of that DLL is delivered by Microsoft that re-introduces the problem and requires another patch session. In fact, exactly this has happened around July 2010, but the solution is already here: Offsets for NEW 6.0.2900.6018 file by mcrealize, corrected by TeaRex
Unfortunately patching a system DLL is not an entirely simple procedure and can only be done with a certain minimum of computer handling experience, but this is the best we can offer for now.
2010-10-09 – nars has posted a patcher tool (direct download link) that promises to solve the problem even for future versions and to make the patching even easier."

Are your time and bios settings correct? When I had problems with the battery used by the BIOS in my desktop I had such a probem... see your settings and if your battery has run out, if so, replace it and reconfigure your BIOS, your icons will be OK.

See ya!!!