Vista - Volume and Network Icons Dissappear

Virtually every time I start up my new laptop (Vista Home Premium SP2) I
have to screw around booting and rebooting until the two icons for
Volume and Network appear in my notification area.

I first tried going to the Properties tab of Notification Area, but the
checkboxes for Volume and Network were, for some reason, greyed out.
Sometimes, not always though, I can "ungrey" them by continual rebooting
until they appear. When they do, I check them and verify that the icons
have indeed appeared.

The very next time I start up my computer I have to go through all these
contortions yet again to bring the checkboxes back.

What the heck is going on? Is there some sort of Registry entry I can
make to avoid having to keep rebooting?

Questor

--->An interesting addendum: If I start up Task Manager and kill
'explorer.exe' then browse for a new task and start up 'explorer.exe'
again all is well and I can check the boxes to give me back my icons.
Also of note: when this happens, my 'auto-hide' of the whole taskbar
won't happen even though the checkbox for this is checked.

I don't really like killing explorer so if anyone can offer an
alternative I'd appreciate it very much.

Questor

Hello Questor,

You might see if this may be able to help.

Notification Area - System Icons

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thanks, Shawn. Those two 'hide/show' registry files just might do the
trick. Next time it happens I'll see.

Questor


--->

You're welcome Questor. Please keep us informed.