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Geek Culture / XP SP2 and system tray icon bug?

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Fallout
22
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Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 17th Sep 2005 18:46
I've been doing a bit of poking around on google and it seems like there is some problem with SP2 causing some system tray icons not to appear on some machines. I'm having this problem. Sometimes I boot and nothing displays except my Internet Security (no volume control, no wireless controls, no nvidia settings etc). Anyone heard of this problem and know of a fix? I have all the updates available from Windows Update. It's becoming a pain as it seems to randomly load or not load the icons at startup, indiscriminantly.

RegenProZ
19
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Joined: 20th Aug 2005
Location:
Posted: 17th Sep 2005 18:49
Windows XP has a feature that monitors the amount that each of the system tray icons is used. When it notices that a certain icon has not been used for a while, it hides it, to save space on the taskbar. So if an icon seems to have dissapeared, it has most probably been hidden.

To view the icons that have been hidden, click on the double arrow on the far left of all the icons.

If you wish to stop this from happening for this icon, goto:

Start
Control Panel
Taskbar and Start Menu
Customize...

Then for each of the icons you can select to have it always hidden, always shown, or to let Windows decide for itself as normally happens. To change an item, simply find the icon you wish to change, click on it, and then the current setting will be shown in a drop-down list box to the right, which you can change. When you have got them all set as you wish, then click OK and OK again.

If you wish to get rid of this feature for *all* icons, and have them all visible all the time (as happened in previous versions of Windows), goto:

Start
Control Panel
Taskbar and Start Menu

Then untick the box that says "hide inactive icons", and click OK.

Fallout
22
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Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 17th Sep 2005 19:12 Edited at: 17th Sep 2005 19:12
No, they're not hidden mate. They're not loaded/not displayed for another reason. Take a look ...



There is no left arrow because they're not on the taskbar at all, even though all six of my startup programs that have taskbar icons can be found in the Task Manager. If I reboot now, there is about a 50-50 chance that they will be displayed next time, or won't.

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spooky
22
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Joined: 30th Aug 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 17th Sep 2005 20:45
I too get this from time to time. I usually have PC Alert running which monitors your fans and temperatures, but sometimes it's taskbar icon doesn't show on booting.

Another problem that does not happen than often but still infuriating, is a Checkpoint SecureClient VPN addon that usually shows in taksbar, but about once a month it just doesn't load.

Boo!
Raven
19
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Joined: 23rd Mar 2005
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 17th Sep 2005 21:13
All Windows XP versions do that... bloody annoying too.
Buggered if I know how to fix it without replacing the shell.

OSX Using Happy Dude
21
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Joined: 21st Aug 2003
Location: At home
Posted: 17th Sep 2005 21:15
Doubt Microsoft will fix it either...

Come to the third DarkBasic Pro Sci Fi Con - Be there and be square
Blog:http://spaces.msn.com/members/BouncyBrick/
Web Site:http://www.nicholaskingsley.co.uk
Darkbasic MADPSP
19
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Joined: 15th Jun 2005
Location: Uk
Posted: 17th Sep 2005 21:16
Easy solution actually remove the one from win update and download it from microsoft because win update has it's own server which gets corrupted a lot of the time

New game about to be unleashed steal un theif
Raven
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Joined: 23rd Mar 2005
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 17th Sep 2005 21:17
hah.. yeah hard to think they will after 3years of waiting for a fix.

Fallout
22
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Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 17th Sep 2005 21:19
Ya know, PCs are machines that follow a set of instructions 100% accurately to the letter (under normal operating conditions). So in order for my taskbar icons to appear and dissappear at different times, the OS has to be physically changing some setting each time I boot up, based on something else that's going on. Someone must've tracked that down by now.

OSX Using Happy Dude
21
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Joined: 21st Aug 2003
Location: At home
Posted: 17th Sep 2005 21:21
Probably - and you'll really have to bribe Microsoft to find out how to fix it...

Come to the third DarkBasic Pro Sci Fi Con - Be there and be square
Blog:http://spaces.msn.com/members/BouncyBrick/
Web Site:http://www.nicholaskingsley.co.uk
Raven
19
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Joined: 23rd Mar 2005
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 17th Sep 2005 21:25
You'd think so, but I'm pretty sure this is more a case of the Icons are trying to access memory that isn't set-up yet.

I've found when my system books up quickly, then I'm missing system tray stuff; but when it takes like forever for the desktop to allow access everything ends up loading.

Would wager major cash on it being a simple memory error.
(that's what most XP issues come down to)

Me!
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Joined: 26th Jul 2005
Location:
Posted: 18th Sep 2005 11:23 Edited at: 18th Sep 2005 11:28
do they come back if you log out and back in?, I noticed that some icons fail to show if some supporting software/device is not ready, for example if the icon for the scanner tries to come up before the device has finished it`s self test then it never shows, and for some reason winderz loads em in different orders every boot, most annoying, maybe if you waited until all the icons came up and changed the settings to hibernate at power off, added advantage is the system starts faster too, I found that from using my laptop, much better.



PS: you can do this as long as the bios supports it, some older ones may not.

the average IQ is 100...but the people that took the test where trying to look smart. most people don`t go over 50.
Area 51?, I`m more intrested in what they have in areas 1 to 50
Darkbasic MADPSP
19
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Joined: 15th Jun 2005
Location: Uk
Posted: 18th Sep 2005 11:34
go to Run - msconfig - untick anything (Except windows stuff) that you don't recongise it'll be an exe most likely reboot and it should work if its a virus if it's spyware go to download.com and search for ad aware se it's anti-spyware

hope this helps

New game about to be unleashed steal un theif
Me!
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Joined: 26th Jul 2005
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Posted: 18th Sep 2005 13:51 Edited at: 18th Sep 2005 13:53
DO NOT FOLLOW THE ABOVE POINTLESS/RISKY MSCONFIG SUGGESTION...in fact ignore Darkbasic MAD when he makes posts like this (not that I think you would follow his advice..but just in case)

@Darkbasic MAD: OK, I have tried to be patient, but someone has to say something ... WILL YOU STOP POSTING STUPID THINGS LIKE THIS, at least read the thread before you post anything, theres nothing wrong with being helpful or making suggestions, but you keep jumping into threads, not reading anything but the header and then making suggestions that could cause some people a lot of trouble, do not go around playing with internal system settings unless you know what you are doing, and you don`t.

you seem over hyper to me, all over the place posting "tutorials" and "tec tips" that are wrong or just stupid, suggesting pointless software as the best thing since the original OS (your zip thread), posting a "tutorial" that is wrong in many respects, or a "chat" program that will not run or even if it did would not transfer anything but ONE number, telling people that virii will politley register themselves with MSconfig, or even that a known windows fault IS a virus, informing people on their birthday thread that you set fire to the lawn after what is unarguabley a stupid and dangerous stunt with spraycans and blowlamps for crying out loud, as though you did something clever, either apply for a job with the Jackass team or calm down!.

please stop making posts unless you know what you are on about, not what you THINK you know about, but what you actualy know about, all you are doing at the moment is training people to ignore anything you post, you might have noticed this in some threads already, some people ignore your posts, calm down, think before you post and lay off the expresso.



the average IQ is 100...but the people that took the test where trying to look smart. most people don`t go over 50.
Area 51?, I`m more intrested in what they have in areas 1 to 50
Killswitch
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Joined: 2nd Oct 2002
Location: School damnit!! Let me go!! PLEASE!!!
Posted: 18th Sep 2005 14:24
Here here Me!

~It's a common mistake to make, the rules of the English langauge do not apply to insanity~

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