Solved Invisible icons in notification area (system tray)

terry09

New Member
I have vista x64 and recently after i cleaned a nasty out of my system, MOST of my notification area icons are invisible. They system icons (network, volume, clock) are showing but the others are not. I have gone in and made sure that i am not hiding inactive icons and far as making sure that I have set all icons to "show". Here is where it get really funked up. I can hover my cursor where the icons should be and it gives me the tips of that program. For example if i hover over where the windows update icon should be, it tells me that i have updates available. And it works. Whilst typing this i thought about changing my theme from vista to classic...the systray had a black box where the icons should be. Kinda like they were being censored but i swear i have no adult rated icons. The system icons still show. I have disabled the UPnP as well as SSDP discovery. I have deleted the registry values of past present and future icons of christmas. That was a joke. I have logged off and logged back on. The only thing that brought them back temporarily was to run ccleaner. After a reboot they went invisible like they were ashamed to be on a windows OS. Go figure. I re-ran ccleaner to no avail. I am now at a loss. I really don't want to reload windows but if i must, i must. Thanks in advance to any suggestions. Oh yeah, sorry for the novel.
 

My Computer

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Gateway
    CPU
    intel core 2 Extreme QX6700
    Motherboard
    intel
    Memory
    3 gigs
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDA
    Sound Card
    Creative SB X-FI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Gateway 24 HD Monitor
    Screen Resolution
    1920 by 1200 pixels
    Hard Drives
    2-500 gigabyte hard drive
    Western digtal
Thanks Jimmy for the quick response. Unfortunately I had tried the first suggestion and the second reported nothing. To make matters more (to use a technical term) "jacked up", I have a couple of icons showing now, but when I hover over them, they seem to be in the wrong spot. I.E., I have to hover to the left of my symantec icon to be able to utilize it's properties. Funky huh? Oh well, I will keep trying.
 

My Computer

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Gateway
    CPU
    intel core 2 Extreme QX6700
    Motherboard
    intel
    Memory
    3 gigs
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDA
    Sound Card
    Creative SB X-FI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Gateway 24 HD Monitor
    Screen Resolution
    1920 by 1200 pixels
    Hard Drives
    2-500 gigabyte hard drive
    Western digtal
Terry09, did you ever figure out how to fix your issue? I have the same problem left over ofter cleaning up some apparent Trojans. My explorer.exe kept crashing too. All fixed after running 4 different anti-virus/malware programs. But that blacked out section in the Notification Area persists...

-Craig
 

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Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    Memory
    6 gig
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD3650 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Intergrated 7.1 Channel Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dell SP2009W 20 inch Flat Panel w Webcam
    Hard Drives
    640 gb
    Cooling
    Fan
    Keyboard
    Dell USB
    Mouse
    Dell USB 4 button optical
    Other Info
    DSL provided by ATT
Thanks for the suggestion. Sorry, I forgot to mention that I did tried that procedures listed above for the reset (merge the provided .reg file and bounce explorer.exe). No luck. BTW, I don't mean to hijack this this thread ;) ... Just wondering if the poster managed to fix his issue in a non destructive way.
 

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CCleaner has a box to check and clean 'notification cache' ... see if that cleans it up.
 

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System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Bruce ... somewhere in his 40's
    CPU
    Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU
    Motherboard
    INTEL/D975XBX2
    Memory
    4 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung SyncMaster 914v
    Screen Resolution
    1280 x 1024
    Hard Drives
    2/500GB each ... ST3500630AS ATA Device.
    One is not connected
    PSU
    Rocketfish 700 W
    Case
    G.Skill Gigabyte Chassis
    Keyboard
    Standard PS/2 Keyboard
    Mouse
    Microsoft PS/2 Mouse
    Internet Speed
    DSL
    Other Info
    ATI HDMI Audio
I have vista x64 and recently after i cleaned a nasty out of my system, MOST of my notification area icons are invisible. They system icons (network, volume, clock) are showing but the others are not. I have gone in and made sure that i am not hiding inactive icons and far as making sure that I have set all icons to "show". Here is where it get really funked up. I can hover my cursor where the icons should be and it gives me the tips of that program. For example if i hover over where the windows update icon should be, it tells me that i have updates available. And it works. Whilst typing this i thought about changing my theme from vista to classic...the systray had a black box where the icons should be. Kinda like they were being censored but i swear i have no adult rated icons. The system icons still show. I have disabled the UPnP as well as SSDP discovery. I have deleted the registry values of past present and future icons of christmas. That was a joke. I have logged off and logged back on. The only thing that brought them back temporarily was to run ccleaner. After a reboot they went invisible like they were ashamed to be on a windows OS. Go figure. I re-ran ccleaner to no avail. I am now at a loss. I really don't want to reload windows but if i must, i must. Thanks in advance to any suggestions. Oh yeah, sorry for the novel.


Does this happen with all Users? If you do not have another User than Please Create another one or Enable the Guest Account

Many Thanks,
Josh
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Custom Built
    CPU
    Intel Core i5 2400 @ 3.10GHz
    Motherboard
    Foxconn H67MP-S/-V/H67MP
    Memory
    8.0GB DDR3 @ 665MHz (2GBx4)
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD HD Radeon 6870
    Sound Card
    Realtek High Definition Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    SMB1930NW (1440x900@60Hz)
    Screen Resolution
    1280x800
    Hard Drives
    977GB Seagate ST31000524AS ATA Device (SATA) + 250GB WD iSCSI attached Drive
    Case
    Novatech Night
    Keyboard
    Standard PS/2 Keyboard
    Mouse
    Dell HID-compliant mouse
Thank you Jacee!! I was having the same problem with the notification area being invisible after a nasty malware removal. I ran the CCleaner and made sure to check the Tray Notification Cache box. Rebooted and now everything is back to normal.

Thanks again :)
 

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I'm Glad you got your Problem Sorted I will now mark this thread as Solved ;)
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Custom Built
    CPU
    Intel Core i5 2400 @ 3.10GHz
    Motherboard
    Foxconn H67MP-S/-V/H67MP
    Memory
    8.0GB DDR3 @ 665MHz (2GBx4)
    Graphics Card(s)
    AMD HD Radeon 6870
    Sound Card
    Realtek High Definition Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    SMB1930NW (1440x900@60Hz)
    Screen Resolution
    1280x800
    Hard Drives
    977GB Seagate ST31000524AS ATA Device (SATA) + 250GB WD iSCSI attached Drive
    Case
    Novatech Night
    Keyboard
    Standard PS/2 Keyboard
    Mouse
    Dell HID-compliant mouse
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