Taskbar Volume Control Icon does not Work in Windows 10/11

Sometimes, the Taskbar volume control icon in Windows may not respond to the mouse click. The slider doesn’t appear when you click on the speaker icon, and nothing happens when you right-click on it. The audio may still work in all applications, but only the controls don’t open. Due to this, users have to open sndvol.exe from the Run dialog to open the Volume Mixer and control the sounds.

This post explains how to fix the volume control (speaker) icon in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Right from the early Windows 10 builds, the Start menu and Taskbar (immersive shell) have always been buggy. It was not unusual to see the Taskbar or the Start menu become non-responsive, especially in the earliest Windows 10 builds. Moreover, the immersive shell menu responsiveness is usually a bit slow compared to the classic Windows menus. The speaker volume control slider and the context menu that appears when you right-click on the speaker icon use the modern UI (a.k.a immersive shell). When the Taskbar gets stuck, none of the notification area icons respond.

The right-click menu has options to open the volume mixer, sound settings, launch the Sounds applet where you can enable/disable playback and recording devices, and alter other properties. While the taskbar volume control icon is non-responsive, audio may still work on the computer, and you’re able to open sndvol.exe and adjust the volume.

[Fix] Taskbar Volume Control Icon does not work

Fix 1: Restart Explorer via Task Manager

The volume control icon may fail to respond intermittently for unknown reasons. The quickest way to resolve the issue is to restart the Explorer shell.

1. Right-click on the Taskbar, and click Task Manager
2. In Task Manager Processes tab, scroll down to the Windows processes category.
3. Right-click Windows Explorer in the list, and click Restart
   
   (For more information, check out the article How to Exit Explorer and Restart Explorer)

This restarts the explorer shell and refreshes the Start menu and taskbar (Shell experience host). See if the volume control button works now.

Fix 2: Reinstall ShellExperienceHost

This particular fix applies to Windows 10 and may not be required if you’re running Windows 11.

Start PowerShell.exe as administrator and then run this command:

Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

The above command reinstalls the ShellExperienceHost package, responsible for the Start menu & Taskbar functionality.

Fix 3: Run the audio troubleshooter

Although the audio may work fine, see if the Audio Troubleshooter picks up misconfiguration in the system, if any. To run the audio troubleshooter, click Start → Settings → Update & security → Troubleshoot → Playing Audio → Run the Troubleshooter.

Alternately, open an admin Command Prompt and run:

msdt.exe -id AudioPlaybackDiagnostic -skip yes -ep SndVolTrayMenu -elevated yes

This starts the audio troubleshooter.

Fix 4: Update the audio drivers

In my case, the troubleshooter notified me that my system was using a generic audio driver. Of course, it’s always a better option to get the latest drivers from your computer manufacturer. OEMs like Dell include a health checkup and software updater tool built-in. They ensure you have the latest drivers from the manufacturer — exactly for your computer model and chipset.

Use your OEM’s support tool to get the latest drivers for your audio device.

Fix 5: Enable the legacy Volume Control slider

To determine if the new shell experience is causing the problem, you can enable the legacy volume control slider using a registry edit.

1. Start Regedit.exe and go to:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

2. Create a subkey named MTCUVC
3. With the MTCUVC key selected, create a new DWORD (32-bit) value named EnableMtcUvc

EnableMtcUvc with value data of 0 enables the legacy volume control flyout.
4. Exit the Registry Editor.

We’ve now enabled the Windows 7-style legacy volume control slider in Windows 10/11. No restart is required after the registry edit.

Workarounds

Install EarTrumpet

You may consider installing the EarTrumpet, third-party software that lets you control the volume of classic and modern Windows apps. EarTrumpet would be a perfect replacement for the native Taskbar speaker icon. EarTrumpet volume control icon shows up alongside the default speaker icon.

After installing EarTrumpet, you can hide the native speaker icon by going into the Settings → Turn system icons on or off.

EarTrumpet is available for free at the Microsoft Store. Get EarTrumpet from Microsoft Store.

The team that built it is:

• Rafael Rivera – a renowned software engineer.
• David Golden – lead engineer on MetroTwit.
• Dave Amenta – ex-Microsoft, worked on Windows shell and Start menu for Windows 8 and 10

Source: EarTrumpet 2.0 intro via Scott Hanselman

You see the various sliders in the flyout. You can even switch the default playback device (e.g., speaker to headphones, or the other way around) on a per-application basis via the flyout.

Whereas the Windows default volume control flyout shows only the global slider; independent controls are available only in the Volume Mixer (sndvol.exe).

You can still open the Windows legacy volume mixer and all other dialogs via the EarTrumpet icon’s context menu.

The Settings option in the EarTrumpet speaker icon context menu lets you assign a keyboard shortcut key to open the volume control slider.

For the full features list and screenshots, see the EarTrumpet’s Github link EarTrumpet: EarTrumpet – Volume Control for Windows. EarTrumpet is also available via the Microsoft Store.

Using keyboard to control the volume (with an AutoHotKey script)

AutoHotkey is a free, open-source scripting language for Windows that allows users to easily create small to complex scripts for all kinds of tasks.

Using a custom AutoHotKey script, you can assign keyboard shortcuts — e.g., Ctrl & Shift & + (Numeric Keypad) and Ctrl & Shift & – (Numeric Keypad) to increase and decrease the volume.

1. Download and install AutoHotKey.
2. Launch Notepad.
3. Copy the following contents and paste them into Notepad:

   ; Adjust Windows Volume using keyboard shortcut:
   
   ^+NumpadAdd::
   SoundGet, volume 
   Send {Volume_Up}
   SoundSet, volume + 2
   Return
   
   ^+NumpadSub::
   SoundGet, volume 
   Send {Volume_Down}
   SoundSet, volume - 2
   Return

4. Save the file as “volume.ahk” in a permanent location — e.g., E:\Scripts.
5. Double-click the script to run it.
6. Open the Startup folder of your user account. To quickly open the Startup folder, type “shell:startup” in the Run dialog and click OK.
7. Create a shortcut for E:\Scripts\volume.ahk and place it in the Startup folder so that the script runs at every login.
   

You should now be able to control the volume using the “Ctrl & Shift & +”  or “Ctrl & Shift & -” key combination to increase or decrease the volume, respectively. Note that you need to use the +/- keys only the numeric keypad for the script to work.

You’ll see the on-screen display (OSD) of the volume control bar. The volume goes up/down by 2 points each time you press the key combination.

You can also use the mouse to drag the volume slider to adjust the volume.

I hope the methods described in this article helped you workaround or fix the non-responsive taskbar volume control icon in Windows 11 or Windows 10.