Fix Network, Clock, Volume and Power (Battery) System Icons Missing with Disabled or Grayed Out Check Box Options
Clock, Volume, Network and Power or Battery icons on notification area (system tray) is system icons that users can choose to display or hide. However, sometimes, any or all of these system icons can disappear, missing or hiding from systray area. The easy solution is to re-enable the showing of system icons on Notification Area tab of Taskbar and Start Menu Properties. However, sometimes, even the checkboxes to enable or disable the displaying of system icons are disable or grayed out, forbidding user from enabling the icons in notification area.
The problematic issue can happen if Windows group policy disables the Clock, Network, Power (or Battery), and Volume icons, or the registry keys related to notification area icons have corrupted. To re-enable and restore the check boxes, and hence user able to restore these system icons on notification area, the policies have to be turned off, and the registry keys reset, cleared or fixed. Note that Power icon may remain grayed out unless your computer is a notebook or laptop, or has a UPS battery backup connected to it.
Enable System Icons via Local Group Policy Editor
- Run GPedit.msc to start Local Group Policy Editor.
- Expand the tree to go to User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Start Menu and Taskbar.
- Change set the state value to Disable or Not Configured for the following group policies to enable showing or displaying of the icon in the notification area.
Clock: Remove Clock from the system notification area
Volume: Remove the volume control icon
Network: Remove the networking icon
Power (battery) Icon: Remove the battery meter - Close the Local Group Policy Editor.
- Restart Explorer, Log off and log on again, or restart computer to make the change effective.
User who uses Windows without Local Group Policy Editor can modify the registry value via Registry Editor instead.
Turn On System Icons for Displaying or Showing via Registry
- Run Registry Editor (RegEdit.exe).
- Navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
- Delete and remove the following registry values in the right pane:
HideClock
HideSCAPower
HideSCAVolume
NoAutoTrayNotify
HideSCANetwork
NoTrayItemsDisplay - Then, navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
- Again, delete any of the following registry values if found:
HideClock
HideSCAPower
HideSCAVolume
NoAutoTrayNotify
HideSCANetwork
NoTrayItemsDisplay - Exit Registry Editor.
- Exit Explorer and restart, Logoff and login again, or reboot PC to apply the changes.
Fix IconStreams and PastIconsStream Registry Subkeys Corruption
If your computer is not affected by group policy (all policies have shown to be enabling the system icons), then the possible root cause for the Clock, Volume, Power and Network system tray icons to go into hiding, missing and disappearing from notification area is invalid or corrupted registry key entries of IconStreams and PastIconsStream. Microsoft KB945011 explains that “when the system or an application wants to put an icon in the notification area, the system or the application sends a discrete communication message to the operating system shell. If the operating system is very busy, that message may expire, or may time out. When this time-out occurs (such as shutdown prematurely), the icon does not appear in the notification area.” However, the error can happens more frequently than the cause specified by Microsoft.
To make the icons reappear, and enable the check boxes for the system icons, delete the specific registry keys.
- Run Registry Editor (RegEdit.exe).
- Navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify
- In the right Details pane, delete the IconStreams registry entry.
- In the right Details pane, click the PastIconsStream registry entry.
- Exit Registry Editor.
- Restart the Explorer.exe process.
All-in-One Registry Hack to Fix and Show Notification Are System Icons Disabled Issue
The following registry hack file contains all fixes listed above, and when apply, will delete all policies to disable the system icons, and reset and restore the notification tray icon streams to clean state.
Download FixTrayIcons.reg
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Entries (RSS)
September 8th, 2009 12:57
Here’s what I did, inspired by Phantom.
I restarted explorer.exe
CTRL+ALT+DELETE for task manager, or right click the taskbar,
Then proccesses: click one and press “e” on your keyboard a few times till explorer.exe comes up… click it and end proccess, then go back to The applications tab and click New Task… and type in explorer.exe
All my icons came back and they werent grayed out anymore.
Good luck everyone.
September 5th, 2009 06:59
okay i verify that this works to all people that is having problem with it .
This is what i did
1.) i downloaded the FixTrayIcons.reg
2.) i double clicked and added it to the registry.
3.) now right click on your taskbar(thing on the bottom) and click task manager.
4.) Okay from now on follow my directions precisely.
5.) Now this will open up the task manager on your toolbar(look for the green animated square)
6.) Double Click that it should bring up a window(the task manager) with tabs labeled Applications, Processes, Services,etc.
7.) click process and click image name, this will sort the processes alphabetically.
8.) now find the 2 ones called explorer.exe and click end process on both of them(click first one end process then repeat for second one if you have it)
9.)if you did this right your taskbar will disappear dont be alarmed this is normal.
10. Now click file in the upper left hand corner and click the option that says new task(Run…) .
11. in the box type in explorer.exe and click okay.
12. Now it should work as intended.
August 20th, 2009 23:51
Great post! Helped solve the problem. Thanks a ton folks!
August 17th, 2009 13:46
none of this worked for me, still can’t see my battery icon (only one missing) what to do?
August 9th, 2009 05:56
yeah its all good, but when i get down to click on policies the explorer icon is not there, what is wrong with my computer ???? !!
August 6th, 2009 02:39
This has been driving me nuts for months and looks set to continue
Thanks for the suggestions, for me they didn’t work but I have spent a long time researching this issue and your site places all of the suggestions in one place. If it’s going to be fixable the solution is here.
Can I just say that I absolutely HATE Vista?
August 4th, 2009 22:58
deleting fixiconstreams worked worked for me, i cud activate my system icons agen
, just that now the hide inactive icons doesnt work any more so i see everysingle icon running, any solution?
August 2nd, 2009 19:37
Worked like a charm!
I removed the IconStreams and installed the registry hack file contains all fixes listed above.
All is cool now, my volume is available! YEAAAAAAAAAAA you save my life dude thanks alut!
July 29th, 2009 00:55
thanks. this helped me out
July 20th, 2009 11:05
That was a good piece of advice. However, just try restarting the explorer.exe process before going into the complex stuff. It almost always works.
July 3rd, 2009 16:31
I love you man! The hack file worked perfectly, just restart your laptop and you can apply all the icons to your taskbar again!
June 7th, 2009 21:32
Hey, I tried everything you said in this article and also tried other stuff mentioned on other blogs and homepages but none of it helped. My icons keep being greyed out. I downloaded a fix which instantly fixed the problem, but as soon as I restart it greys out again. Do you have any suggestions?
Thank you.
June 3rd, 2009 21:52
AIO reg hack works like a charm
April 16th, 2009 05:25
OMG! I thought they were gone forever. Thanks so much.
Last suggestion was the helpful one.
April 16th, 2009 00:30
i AM REALLY THANK FULL TO YOU SOLVE MY PROBLEM
April 15th, 2009 02:20
Fix IconStreams and PastIconsStream Registry Subkeys Corruption was helpful, thanks!
April 11th, 2009 06:49
Thanks a ton for this article – the last suggestion on deleting “IconStreams” and “PasteIconsStream” worked like a charm!
April 6th, 2009 12:08
where do we go to try the registry keys thing?
April 3rd, 2009 09:29
I tried everything multiple times and none of it worked. I really miss my little icons.
March 5th, 2009 13:11
Thank you very much for this article.
February 1st, 2009 01:11
thanks
January 29th, 2009 08:45
Thanks, the Fix IconStreams and PastIconsStream Registry Subkeys Corruption worked perfectly for me also.
January 27th, 2009 13:06
neither of these fixes worked. I dont have group policies enabled, i didnt have any hide icons. The battery icon is greyed out, and I deleted the registry file for past registry items. I also used the download registry file. I would really like a fix to this problem it started 3 days ago.
January 25th, 2009 09:02
The Fix IconStreams and PastIconsStream Registry Subkeys Corruption worked perfectly for me
January 1st, 2009 02:14
[...] the check boxes are grayed out or disabled, there is a fix to show the notification are system icons [...]