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.
Related Posts
- Feeds Plus Adds Aggregation and Notification Features to Your Feed Subscriptions in Internet Explorer
- Quickly Switch Your Internet Explorer Proxy Settings Using IEProxy
- How to Disable Windows Parental Controls Reminder
- How to Clear Customize Notifications (System Tray) Icons in Windows 7/Vista and XP
- Error “a .Bin File Is Missing” When Updating AVG Anti-Virus 8.0
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed! We feature Tips, Troubleshooting information, Scripts and Utilities for Microsoft Windows Operating Systems!
Prefer an E-mail subscription?
I could not download the trayicons.reg file for some reason. Clicking the link only opened a text file that showed the reg values that needed to be deleted. So I went into the registry to look for the values that should be deleted, but they werent there. Any idea why?
Not having my icons stinks. Any help would be great.
Thanks
Thanks for this very helpful article and fix. Worked great.. I’ve been having this problem for some time now.. I sure am glad to have all my tray icons back. kudos.
Thanks! That worked great. I thought I would be stuck with an invisible volume forever.
Holy Toledo…the trayicon.reg WORKED…I don’t know how to thank you, I have tried EVERYTHING including the MS fix/workaround!
thanks soooooooo much! the trayicons.reg didn’t work for me, there was no merge option and whenever i pressed the run icon, it only opened the file using notepad. the explorer.exe worked out for me. could u possibly explain why this things might have occured in the first place? thanks again!
Thanks a Ton, this problem has occurred twice for me, first time I fixed it with system restore, second time with your registry fix. I must admit this was a useful piece of code.
Thanks for your article. Ending & restarting the “explorer.exe” process helped me get back my “Volume” icon in the notification area. Thanks
This fix didn’t work. My power icon in taskbar, properties, notification area is still grayed out and doesn’t appear in the taskbar because I can’t check a grayed out icon.
Thank you,
Terym
Thanks, I had the same problem and I resolved thanks to your article. I also wrote an article on my blog for users Italians.
Many thanks for the fix for missing tray icons in Vista. Worked a treat. Don’t know why the icons disappeared in the first place, but grateful to resolve the problem.