Windows Defender Icon Not Found in System Tray (Notification Area)
Windows Defender is a free anti-spyware and spyware scanning and removal tool that protects computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware, adware and other unwanted software in real-time. Previously Windows Defender is called Microsoft Anti-Spyware and after installing Microsoft Anti-Spyware, there will be an icon in the notification area (system tray).
However, in Windows Defender, you won’t be able to see or find any Windows Defender’s icon resided in notification area or system tray, as the icon is not enabled by default. That’s mean Windows Defender icon will be missing from Windows system tray unless you specifically select the option to display the Windows Defender icon.
To display the Windows Defender icon in Windows notification area (system tray), go to Tools and select Options under the Settings section. Scroll down the Options page, at the section of “Real-time protection options”, there is an option “Choose when the Windows Defender icon appears in notification area”. By default the selected option is “Only if Windows Defender detects an action to take”, which means the icon will only appear if there is any action by Windows Defender. To always show the Windows Defender icon, select (check) “Always”. Click on Save when done.
Related Articles
- Disable and Turn Off System Tray (Notification Area) to Hide Icons in Windows XP and Vista
- Easy Way to Hide or Show Notification Area Icons on Taskbar in Windows 7
- Volume, Battery (Power) or Network Icon Disappear or Missing from Vista Taskbar Notification Area (System Tray)
- Workaround to Hide and Minimize Windows Live Messenger Icon/Button to Notification Area (System Tray) in Windows 7
- How to Hide or Remove Action Center Icon from Notification Area in Windows 7
- How to Disable (Remove and Uninstall) Windows Defender in Vista
- Fix Network, Clock, Volume and Power (Battery) System Icons Missing with Disabled or Grayed Out Check Box Options
- Disable Security Center Alerts in Windows XP and Vista
- System Tray Icon Missing from System Tray in Windows XP
- Windows Defender Review by Spyware Confidential
Entries (RSS)
January 27th, 2009 16:04
Cleaning up the reg Run line worked perfectly for me. Thanks so much.
October 23rd, 2008 14:35
I had the same problem that most people had, windows defender tray icon didnt appear even with the options of always enable and everything; but the real solution is to put in the run command
(regedit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run )
“C:\Program Files\Windows Defender\MSASCui.exe” -hide
instead of
%Program Files\Windows Defender\MSASCui.exe -hide
to be honest i dont know why it works that way but for dumb problems dumb solutions
July 19th, 2008 08:16
This anti-spyware really nice for our PC protection as it can do three acts in protecting our PC, detect, Identify and remove spyware from our PC.
July 12th, 2007 00:27
Minh, probably, the issue could be caused due to a virus if it is greyed out in the taskbar properties Notification area. Please run a virus scan and if that did not fix the issue, then you need to perform a system restore or recovery by reinstalling the OS to fix the issue.
April 5th, 2007 05:02
My Volume, Network and Power icons in Notification Area are disable. I can not check them.
Is there any way to fix that?
Thanks
November 25th, 2006 14:24
thank you. i thought i read every tools/options, but i missd this one.