Fix for When Clock, Volume, Power or Network Icons are Missing and Grayed Out in Windows Vista
So you notice you are missing icons in the System Tray, like the clock or volume icons, and then you realize that you simply can’t enable them because the checkboxes are grayed out. So what do you do?
The problem exists because system policies were set that probably shouldn’t be, but either way your icons are missing:
Normally you can re-enable the items by right-clicking on the Taskbar, choosing properties and going to the Notification Area tab:
But they are grayed out… what’s up with that?
Note: I’m assuming you already did the normal Windows fix-it technique of rebooting, and the problem still exists.
Fix for Notification Icons are Missing and Checkboxes are Grayed Out
You can solve all of these problems by looking in two separate places in the registry, and then deleting a bunch of keys in each location. We’ll detail all of the keys here, but you can skip down a bit for a downloadable registry hack file.
Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
If you see any of the following key names in the right-hand pane, delete them:
- NoTrayItemsDisplay
- HideClock
- HideSCAPower
- HideSCAVolume
- NoAutoTrayNotify
- HideSCANetwork
After deleting the values in that pane, browse to the following key and then repeat the process:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
You’ll have to logout and then back in, and then most likely go back into taskbar properties and re-check the boxes for each.
Download Registry Hack
Just download, extract, and double-click on RestoreMyTrayIconsPlease.reg to enter the information into the registry.
Download RestoreMyTrayIconsPlease Registry Hack
What if the Volume Icon Still Doesn’t Work?
Over the last year, many people have reported a related problem to me: They just have no volume icon… and also no sound.
If you encounter this problem, you should immediately open Device Manager and make sure that there are no exclamation points next to your sound card, because the problem is likely that your sound card driver isn’t working.
If there are exclamation points, or the sound card is missing and there are a bunch of “Unknown devices”, you usually need to reload the sound card driver from the manufacturer, but sometimes you can right-click on the device and choose to “Update Driver”.
Note: I’ve also run into this issue with Toshiba and Acer laptops, the solution for those usually being a BIOS update.
If you still have problems, head over to our forum and ask your question over there.
Important Note: Numerous people have reported to me that this problem happens much less after installing Service Pack 1, so you should probably make sure you are all patched up as well.
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In case of grayed out or missing system icons it is mostly enough to open the Task Manager, end the explorer process and run it again
(new task, run, explorer). All four system icons will reappear!
Pls check it!
That’s a good point, I updated the article to mention this is for when rebooting doesn’t fix the problem.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
What we all really want to know is, where did you get the Super Mario wallpapers?
@Matt
Seems like every other article I end up getting that same question… I got it from here:
http://desktopgaming.com/display.php?file_id=35
Thank you for the tip.
It’s a shame, this is the kind of tip I would expect for the Linux OS, not a commercial OS.
Hey, can this (or something similar) work for windows xp?
Every once in a while, XP has been removing the volume control icon in my taskbar. I’ve had to go to sounds in the control panel (where the box to place an icon in the taskbar is still checked but no icon shows up) uncheck the box, click apply and then recheck it and click apply to have it reappear.
I’ve tried rebooting and everything else in the book, but it still disappears (and not because its inactive, I have it set to always show)….any help is appreciated!
Does this fix missing icons in the control panel in Vista as well? My printer on my hp laptop stop working. Go into my control panel and that icon is missing.
I did this and it messed up my machine but good. I didn’t even have Explorer folder under Policies. I had to go back and delete those registry entries to get my CPU to stop being pegged at 100%.
I found that the process described here has worked for me:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto.....ows-vista/
Useful tip, yet it highlights another of those niggly little things that conspire to stop me falling in love with Vista. In XP the network tray icon gave a reasonably clear indication of network activity. The Vista version is far less distinct. Probably a case of too many graphic designers and not enough software engineers.
@Geek – re: your note about SP1 causing this to happen less.
I prefer an icon-free deskop and use the quick launch bar, so I usually only have the (My)Computer icon up in the corner. Having just installed SP1 I notice that that, too, has disappeared! I don’t really care, but would be interested to know if anyone else has seen this.
Thank you so so much. It was driving me nuts, the ending the explorer and restarting it worked. You guys are great! thank you!
Wow – What lifesavers you are! Ending explorer and restarting worked for me, as I didn’t have an explorer folder under policies either. I am going to bookmark this site!! Thanks much!
This problem went away a month ago when I installed Vista SP1. However, yesterday it came back. I’m back to having to shutdown and restart Explorer to get the taskbar icons for network, power, and volume every time I reboot. None of the entries in this article are in my registry either, so that’s not what’s causing it. Any other ideas?
I have found that all you have to do is end Explorer under Processes in the Task Manager (Ctrl+Shft+Esc) and restart it (File/New Task(Run)/Explorere.exe in Task Manager) for the Network, Volume and Battery icons to reappear on your notifications bar.
I have pretty much resigned myself to doing that after every boot up.
Dobay…EXCELLENT! Worked like a charm.
awesome man. i got it fixed thx to u guys. peace~
If have a problem with my vista system where all my system icons was gone and couldn’t enable them because they were all grayed out ad i was getting very frustion because nothing seemed to work. Then i came on to this site and read what Dobay Raymund said to do in his comment and it work!! This guy is a genius. Thank you so much!
thank u that’s just what I needed volume and networking are back where they belong, in the systray
thank you
Dobay Raymund’s comment helped me… that seems to work the easiest, but i don’t know how long it will last for!
thanks!
dobay, thanks alot, simple easy and effective man
Please follow these simple steps to restore your volume, power etc. icons that are grayed out for Vista! Simple:
Go to Start Menu
Click on Programs
Click on Accessories
Click on System Tools
Click on Control Panel
Click on Taskbar & Start Menu
Click on Notification Area, your boxes are no longer grayed out, click the ones you want open, I searched for months without finding a solution & a friend gave me this, please post it EVERYWHERE!
It worked! I was working on a friends Laptop and three of the four main icons were gone. I knew it was a registry problem, but I didn’t know the name of the keys to change. I downloaded his regfile and modified it (because it didn’t work they way they had it.) I change the values to 0 so that the keys were created with the values off. When I logged off and then back on – there the icons were, right where they needed to be.
Thanks!
The end explorer-in-taskmanager trick provided by Dobay Raymund (may 1st) worked for me!
However, when I tried the regedit-trick, I had no folder titled Explorer in my Policies folder…?
Anywho, problem solved!
Now I’m gonna work on my iMac again.
Cee ya!
no suggestions have worked for me. I dont have an explorer key to delete keys in the registry. And the lengthy way of running the control panel Taskbar and Start Menu yeilded still greyed out boxes. So who has an ultimate solution?
Fuzzy,
Download the regkey provided by this site. But before you merge it, right click it and select “edit”. Then, change the – (that will delete the keys) to a 0 (zero.)
What that will do is CREATE the explorer keys and then set their values to 0 (or available to be modified by the enduser.)
Log off of the account and log back in. NOW, through the Taskbar and Start Menu, the values should be available for you to click and enable the task bar icon.
Email me with more questions or to talk on the phone.
no3gods @ hotmail . com
Thanks Dobay Raymund! My network and volume icons had disappeared and their checkboxes grayed, and I tried everything else but nothing worked, and then I restarted explorer from the task manager and everything is fixed.
I’ve been reloading the explorer for a while now and figured it was just something I was going to have to live with.
I just recently got a new laptop and noticed that it didn’t have this problem…. until I installed the anti-virus and anti-spyware programs (which I did after I installed and estimate 982734986534 Windows updates and rebooted about as often).
Shockingly, my icons were there every time until then.
Today I installed SP1 among many other updates and I also activated the SLi video feature. Oddly enough my icons are back.
I’m starting to think it might have something to do with a) anti-virus or anti-spyware or b) poor video response. The reason I bought this SLi laptop was the overtaxed and under-performing video on my previous unit.
Regardless of the cause, reloading the explorer always worked for me. If I had to do it every time I booted up I would as the battery level and wireless connection are a vital statistics on a laptop.
Hi, this is my problem: the files that u say to delete ( * NoTrayItemsDisplay* HideClock * HideSCAPower * HideSCAVolume * NoAutoTrayNotify * HideSCANetwork) what if you go to the registry editor and none of those files are even there for you to delete? then what do you do?
thank you, thank you, thank you! this was driving me crazy!!!! finding a way to solve it was really hard. ending explorer and restarting it fixed it for me. THANK YOU!
Yehey! Thanks for all the help in this website!! I thought I had some bug in my computer. I’ve just doing some auto updates for the past couple of days, then last night, it started acting weird. My network and volume icons are back on. I just ended the explorer.exe process on my task manager, then clicked on “File” and “Run” then typed in “Explorer”. That did the trick!!
Mr. Dobay Raymund;
You were right on !!!!!!! Thank’s very much !!!!!!!
R.A.
Here is no sound after installing Service pack 1,and after that thanks to you and this tutorial I found in device manager sound update and fix the problem.thanks a lot…
The comment about ending the explorer process worked perfect for me thanks!!
Thank you. Adding the registry values again, rebooting, then right clicking on the taskbar and clicking properties etc. and checking the network icon and sound icon worked. Before I added the restoreMyTrayIconsPlease registry hack, those options were greyed out and all of the registry values that I had to check for under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer were missing. Very strange.
In regards to the following post:
“Mel
Please follow these simple steps to restore your volume, power etc. icons that are grayed out for Vista! Simple:
Go to Start Menu
Click on Programs
Click on Accessories
Click on System Tools
Click on Control Panel
Click on Taskbar & Start Menu
Click on Notification Area, your boxes are no longer grayed out, click the ones you want open, I searched for months without finding a solution & a friend gave me this, please post it EVERYWHERE! ”
Thank you very much for this, I have tried everything to get back my icons and this was the only thing that worked, Thank you
I have followed all of the steps that everyone has left.
Mel, I have tried your method, but the volume box is still greyed out!
Also, in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer there did not exist an explorer file in the policies file.
I NEED HELP WITH THIS PRETTY SOON!
who can help?
Thanks.
Charlotte,
Please try what I suggested while talking to Fuzzy. It worked for me while working on a friends laptop.
If you still need help, email me at no3gods @ hotmail.com (remove the spaces)
Regards,
mike
Thanks Dobay! I contacted my computer manufacturer, they recommended this website to me, and your answer solved the problem (the above steps did not!).
Thanks for the advice. Disabling the explorer solved the problem for me.
Thanks many thanks, Whooooohaaaaaa!
From Holland, with love
Really Who so ever told this trick of disabling of explore.exe worked for me
HE IS THE MAN
I appreciate him.
Dobay Raymund’s suggestion works on Windows Vista, but you might have to re-enable the checkbox in the toolbar properties window, as mine did not instantly reappear. Nothing else worked on mine, as far as regedit fixes, etc.
You don’t have to do this to open the notification area:
“Mel
Please follow these simple steps to restore your volume, power etc. icons that are grayed out for Vista! Simple:
Go to Start Menu
Click on Programs
Click on Accessories
Click on System Tools
Click on Control Panel
Click on Taskbar & Start Menu
Click on Notification Area, your boxes are no longer grayed out, click the ones you want open, I searched for months without finding a solution & a friend gave me this, please post it EVERYWHERE! ”
Just right click on the system tray, select properties, and then select notification area.
Windows Vista Disappearing System Tray Icons Quick Fix
How-to for fixing missing icons in the Windows Vista system tray:
1. Back up the Registry by creating a restore point.
2. Go to Start > Run (or Windows-key + “R”), type in “regedit” and hit “OK”.
3. Navigate to the key “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \TrayNotify”.
4. Delete the values “IconStreams” and “PastIconsStream”.
5. Open up the Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc), go to the “Processes” tab, select “explorer.exe” and click “End Process”.
6. Open the “Applications” tab and click “New Task…” at the bottom-right of the window.
7. In the message box that pops up type in “explorer.exe” and hit “OK”.
8. Explorer.exe will reload, and the missing icons should now be back in the system-tray where they belong.
9. If not right click taskbar and select properties, now open the notification tab and the network, volume, and power check boxes are no longer faded out so select them and click apply then OK.
Wala
Worked for me
I just experienced this today after installing Avast Anti-viral software. My battery icon disappeared and it was not available when I tried to check the box. For a simple solution that took 5 minutes, give this a try. I’m glad it worked.
1. Close all programs, and shut down the laptop.
2. Remove all power supplies (battery and power cord)
3. Drain remaining power by pushing the power on button for 30 seconds(while you have no power supply)
4. Put the battery back in and boot up the computer
5. Once booted completely, right click the system tray and select properties
6. The boxes should now all be selectable
I hope this helps someone else who thought all was lost.
Hey all,
Thanks, went through all these suggestions but none of it restored my icon. I tried the first suggestion. I tried shutting down explorer.exe and restarting it. I tried deleting the iconstreams and pasticonstreams and restarting explorer.exe. Uninstalled and reinstalled my drivers, still no joy. No malware, spyware, virii or anything like that.
Anyone else have any other ideas?
Magis123,
If you still need help with this, I should be able to help.
Please email me at no3gods @ hotmail .com (remove the spaces.)
Or you can contact me through my website.
Regards,
Mike
Thank you so much to you guys and a special thanks to the creators of RestoreMyTrayIconsPlease Registry hack.
I dowloaded the registry file applied it to my registry and then restarted my computer and then navigated to the start menu properties and checked the check boxes for volume and network which were greyed out when i had the problem.
I appreciate the information and advice you have given in this article.
Best Regards, Ilan.
Not only did none of those suggestions work, but RestoreMyTrayIcons refused to run on my computer.
Hey,
I’ve tried to fix my dissapearing icons with regedit, but when I go through all of the things you’ve said… the hiden files aren’t there… Is there another way to fix the problem? This particular problem doesn’t hapen often, sometimes I can just check on the box in notification area, but right now… nothing seems to work… By that I mean only the icon, sounds work but it’s getting on my nerves…
None of these work for me.
my laptop is japanese version all install,i whant to upgrade in english version ,my laptop is window vista home premuim, can i upgarede even no cd istaller ,pls geve me a tip how to solve it ,because i dont understand japanese version laptop.& hove online software free version to upgrde .ty if you can solve my problem 3 problem
Mersi wala (sw01fl)
Thanks for the great fix. It works ^^
None of these solutions helped. I deleted and recreated explorer.exe. Tried to change it from within the control panel instead of right-clicking the task bar. Downloaded the registry hack provided on this page. Searched for ‘Hideclock’ etc. in my registry editor. Restarted my computer numerous times. Absolutely nothing works. At this point, I basically hate Windows Vista. Does anyone have any other solutions?
MANY THANKS FOR THE TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE! I HOPE MANY PEOPLE BE MORE LIKE YOU INSTEAD OF WASTING ENERGY AND TIME IN HACKING AND DESTROYING CYBER PROPERTIES OF OTHERS! GOD BLESS YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!
@Katie After you executed the RestoreMyTrayIconsPlease.reg (the one you downloaded) do this
By Dobay Raymund – In case of grayed out or missing system icons it is mostly enough to open the Task Manager, end the explorer process and run it again
(new task, run, explorer). All four system icons will reappear!
Pls check it!
thanks sw01fl
it worked for me
i wont have to keep doing it will i??
hopefully not:)
xxx
My volume icon keeps disappearing. Yes the “log off”/”log on” trick works. Yes the check and then uncheck “place volume icon in system tray” trick works. Yes the stop and then restart explorer.exe trick works (that’s probably the fastest workaround). But these are all just temporary workarounds and the problem always comes right back when the computer restarts. How do I fix the problem PERMANENTLY? I don’t have a problem with greyed out checkboxes. Should I still try the registry edits suggested here? Are they permanent fixes?