Notification Area - System Icons

Hello Scharfm,

Welcome to Vista Forums.

Usually the Power icon will remain grayed out unless your computer is a laptop or is a desktop that has a UPS battery backup connected to it.

Is this the issue? If not, and it has just stopped recently, you might consider doing a System Restore using a restore point dated before it was grayed out.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

I have two identical HP pavillon DV9000 laptops. One mine, one my adult son's. Mine shows power icon on taskbar and it is NOT greyed out. The other machine does NOT show the power icon and it IS greyed out. I tried the registry edit on page 1 of this thread. There are NO "hide..." entries under ....policies/explorer.... although there are the 4 other entries shown in the screen shot (page 1).

this is Windows home PREMIUM, 64 BIT.

Hello McLeandc,

See if removing the laptop battery while it is shut off, then connecting it back and powering it back up will allow the Power icon to not be grayed out afterwards.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

the power icon magically reappeared.... can't tell what I did to get it back..... we'll see how long it stays... thanks for the idea... I'll try it next time it happens?!

Your welcome McLeandc. I hope it stays for you.

Shawn

I followed the instructions for Home Premium but still no joy.

I have Vista Business on my desktop and this has never been an issue but on my laptop with Home Premium I'm getting frustrated.

Hello Eagles10,

Welcome to Vista Forums.

What System icon are you having problems with, and what is it doing or not doing?

Shawn

Hi, I'm having problems with the Network, Power & Volume icons. Sometimes they're there other times one or other might be there and sometimes none of them appear. Whenever a particular icon doesn't appear then the check box in the Notification Area is greyed out.

Thanks for your help

Dino

Dino,

I noticed that with some laptops, removing the battery and then reconnecting it would allow them to reappear again when it happens. It might be worth a try to see if it may work for you.

Also, see if resetting the Notification icons can help. This can help if there is any corruption in this list. This tutorial will show you how to if needed.

Notification Icons - Reset

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Did everything you are saying... but my network icon doesn't display in the task bar...
In the taskbar properties it remains gray out.
Also updated the drivers and everything works fine.

What to do.... i dont know... i am out of ideas.