Comments on: Understanding Vista’s New Network Connection Icons

By: JD

JD — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:48:51 +0000

Great solution, thanks a lot !

By: Moniko

Moniko — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:17:52 +0000

Thanks Patrick and Andrew.
Your solution worked also with my problem which was a little bit different.
My network icon was present but didn’t show the small globe when connected to the internet.
After deleting keys‘IconStreams’ & ‘PastIconsStream’ in registry and restarting windows explorer, the icon showed up the globe again.
Thanks again.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:55:51 +0000

Cool solution. Thanks man.

By: MDPhD

MDPhD — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:30:47 +0000

It worked fine, thanks.
Iconst restored, at last!
Had this problem for so long.
Cheers.

By: vance

vance — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:39:46 +0000

thanks hp tech india im up and running.

By: Patricia

Patricia — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 12:42:41 +0000

Andrew, thank u so much! Worked perfectly. For everyone else trying this don’t be afraid of step here – it works immediately and I was SO happy to have my icons back. I had installed some tools to download music and that’s when I lost my icons and they were greyed out in properties. All happy again. The steps below that Andrew gave work as fast as you can click and type. I’m glad I now know about howtogeek.com!
CLEARING THE TRAY ICON HISTORY

> run ‘regedit.exe’

> goto key ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \TrayNotify’

> delete keys ‘IconStreams’ & ‘PastIconsStream’

> start task manager, go to processes and kill explorer.exe

> go to applications in the task manager, hit new task and type ‘explorer.exe’

> explorer will now reboot and woohey, your icons should return.

By: nick

nick — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 05:55:11 +0000

I Need Your Help. Please.
I use Vista, and now every time I go from one web page to another, or even click between different tabs, or even type into a form box (!) Network Connections starts a pop-up window asking me to connect with a dialup connection. This used to happen a lot; now its every time I do anything! What can I do to disable this very able feature?!

By: Glen

Glen — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:06:26 +0000

Thanks Patrick! The registry / explorer.exe fix you posted is still relevant even now and fixed a related issue on my workstation where only the wireless connection was being reflected. Now with the fix, it reflects the *ACTIVE* connection as it should.

Thanks!

By: Will

Will — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:41:49 +0000

Andrew, worked for me as well! This has been buging me for at least 2 months since my network icon disappeared. Thank-you!!!!!!

By: Gavin

Gavin — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:37:27 +0000

i have a problem with my msn live messenger. my friends say that i am sending them broken links when i am offline. i think its a virus but i scanned my whole computer with mcafee and it found nothing. i have used online scanners too but they also found nothing. CAN SOMEBODY HELP!!!!!!!!!