When you start your Windows Vista computer, the Volume Control icon may be missing from the Notification area. Also, in the Taskbar properties – Notification tab, the checkboxes for Clock, Volume and Network may remain grayed out.
Simply logging off and logging on to your user account helps in most cases, if this is not caused by a Policy setting. Alternately, you may try terminating and restarting Explorer.exe to see if that works. If that does not help (and your computer is not part of a domain), use the instructions below to unlock the Notification area icons.
Registry Fix
Download trayicons.reg and save to Desktop. Right-click on the file and choose Merge. Click Yes when prompted for confirmation.
Note that the previously mentioned REG file removes the following Registry-based Policy values in your system:
- HideSCAVolume
- HideSCANetwork
- HideClock
- HideSCAPower
Additionally, it clears the IconStreams & PastIconsStream values as suggested in Microsoft KB945011.
Important: After running the .REG file, you need to terminate and restart Explorer.exe for the change to take effect.
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magico!!! restarting explorer and relogging the user account works! grazie, valentina Italy
it seems an anti malware program fixed my problem (thank you malwarebytes).
the key in, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{35CEC8A3-2BE6-11D2-8773-92E220524153}\InprocServer32\
pointed to another .dll file due to a virus i had.
changing it back to: C:\WINDOWS\System32\stobject.dll fixed it as i could enable the icons in the notification area again.
a while back i did an update and after that my network, sound and “safely remove hardware” icons were gone and in the notification area all of the options are greyed out. none of the tips on the internet i have found so far hasn’t worked for me:
reboot
delete traynotify keys in the registry and restart explorer.exe
disable/enable upnp service
reinstall drivers
system icons fix-it tool from microsoft
reset registry keys to default concerning hide/unhide system icons
replaced run32dll.exe and explorer.exe from vista service pack 2 (perhaps it was corrupted)
after reading the tip of Robert about reinstalling service pack 2, i did that at the last hope and still the icons did not re-appeared nor could i enable it in the notification area.
i don’t know else how to fix this besides reinstalling windows completely, which i rather don’t want to do.
restarting explorer.exe solved my problem. thanks
terminating and restarting Explorer.exe worked. Thanks a bunch !
Eureka: I have tried 1) auto_fix.reg 2) micrsoft_fixit.msi 3)manual reg repair and 4)AUC (Automated User Control) toggling all methods require restarting explorer or rebooting. If your problem is as serious as mine you need to repeat these actions on every second reboot.
A gentlemen wished service pack 2 had fixed this. A little light came on and I unistalled and then reinstalled service pack 2. I have had 5 reboots with no problems. Therefore this seems the most robust repair if this is a reoccuring problem.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If your computer came factory installed with SP2 you may not uninstall it.
Sincerely,
R, Manley