Vista Tutorial - tray area maxed out

That's just my guess.
I noticed some time last week, that my realtek, and Intel graphics media icons were missing from the tray.
I use them all the time when the sound messes up, or the desktop gets toodark. This is a NEW problem since adding the wallpaper gadget. The desktop getting too dark. The boot settings for the desktop revert to original settings at every boot. And you can't remove the wallpaper gadget. No idea what that's all about. You can remove it from the sidebar, but not the gadget gallery.

I've been going back and forth the past week just trying to keep them in the tray.

right click task bar select properties- notification area- customize- turned both on to SHOW.. turned off 'hide inactive icons'

control panel - hardware and sound - realtek media - 'i' bottom right - display icon in tray, toggle off and back on. now in tray.

Don't know what will appear on the next reboot. But that's been the process for the past week.

msconfig shows them both in the registry as startups for run.

Is there such a thing as MAX display icons in the system tray, and the boot drops either or both when it gets close to a full tray ?
Or how do I get these icons to quit disappearing ?

I don't use the HIDE inactive icons setting.
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