A while back, I started using a new HP ENVY 14 laptop running
Windows 7 (64-bit).
A frequently recurring annoyance has been that when I start up my laptop from boot or from "sleep", some of the Systray icons (which should appear) are not appearing - even though the process to which they belong is active/running.
After double-checking that these icons were set to display at all times in the system, I googled
"Windows Systray icons do not display", and came up with a list of results, one of which was to a Microsoft discussion forum. It's evidently a fairly common problem. One of the discussions in that forum had a link to a post made by Colin Cochrane in 2007 about this same problem, but it was with
Windows Vista -
Windows Vista Disappearing System Tray Icons Fix
The problem seems to be a bug in the Windows OS (Operating System) - common to Windows Vista and Windows 7.
I tried out part of his suggested workaround (it's not a fix) for the problem, and it worked a treat, so below is that part copied as a series of steps.
Note that this workaround may need to be repeated as and when necessary to restore all your Systray icons.
- Open up the Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc), then:
- click on the "Processes" tab,
- select "explorer.exe" and click "End Process".
- Now click on the "Applications" tab, and
- click "New Task..." at the bottom-right of the window.
- In the message box that pops up type in "explorer.exe" (without the quotes)
- click "OK".
- Explorer.exe will reload, and that's it! The missing icons should now be back in the system-tray where they belong.
Hope this works for you as well as it works for me.
