hide inactive icons

I have WinXP SP2 on my PC. A couple of days ago I noticed that when I booted
my PC, I did not see the expansion arrow next to the time and date on the
task (the system tray?). When I go into task bar properties I see the "hide
inactive icons" option is greyed out along with the customize button. I am
not quite sure how this happened. Has this issue been raised here before and
if so was/is there a solution for this so I can customize the icons AND see
the expansion arrow?

I had seen one article in the knowledge base that indicated that the
registry entries for iconstreams and pasticonsstream needs to be emptied in
case it was corrupted. When I looked for these entries I noticed that both
are empty in the registry.

Any help to overcome these two issues that I have been seeing would be much
appreciated.

"Hide inactive icons" is greyed out in Taskbar Properties
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/traynotify.htm

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In news:40C09A98-7453-42EC-900F-1815B6610D65@microsoft.com,
VN <VN@discussions.microsoft.com> hunted and pecked:
> I have WinXP SP2 on my PC. A couple of days ago I noticed that when I
> booted my PC, I did not see the expansion arrow next to the time and date
> on the task (the system tray?). When I go into task bar properties I see
> the "hide inactive icons" option is greyed out along with the customize
> button. I am not quite sure how this happened. Has this issue been
> raised here before and if so was/is there a solution for this so I can
> customize the icons AND see the expansion arrow?
>
> I had seen one article in the knowledge base that indicated that the
> registry entries for iconstreams and pasticonsstream needs to be emptied
> in case it was corrupted. When I looked for these entries I noticed that
> both are empty in the registry.
>
> Any help to overcome these two issues that I have been seeing would be
> much appreciated.

Wes, Thanks that did the trick! I appreciate your help.

"Wesley Vogel" wrote:

> "Hide inactive icons" is greyed out in Taskbar Properties
> http://windowsxp.mvps.org/traynotify.htm
>
> --
> Hope this helps. Let us know.
>
> Wes
> MS-MVP Windows Shell/User
>
> In news:40C09A98-7453-42EC-900F-1815B6610D65@microsoft.com,
> VN <VN@discussions.microsoft.com> hunted and pecked:
> > I have WinXP SP2 on my PC. A couple of days ago I noticed that when I
> > booted my PC, I did not see the expansion arrow next to the time and date
> > on the task (the system tray?). When I go into task bar properties I see
> > the "hide inactive icons" option is greyed out along with the customize
> > button. I am not quite sure how this happened. Has this issue been
> > raised here before and if so was/is there a solution for this so I can
> > customize the icons AND see the expansion arrow?
> >
> > I had seen one article in the knowledge base that indicated that the
> > registry entries for iconstreams and pasticonsstream needs to be emptied
> > in case it was corrupted. When I looked for these entries I noticed that
> > both are empty in the registry.
> >
> > Any help to overcome these two issues that I have been seeing would be
> > much appreciated.
>

Glad to hear it. Keep having fun. ;-)

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In news:FB3F17F2-1930-41FF-8F50-BF42A1C5D952@microsoft.com,
VN <VN@discussions.microsoft.com> hunted and pecked:
> Wes, Thanks that did the trick! I appreciate your help.
>
> "Wesley Vogel" wrote:
>
>> "Hide inactive icons" is greyed out in Taskbar Properties
>> http://windowsxp.mvps.org/traynotify.htm
>>
>> --
>> Hope this helps. Let us know.
>>
>> Wes
>> MS-MVP Windows Shell/User
>>
>> In news:40C09A98-7453-42EC-900F-1815B6610D65@microsoft.com,
>> VN <VN@discussions.microsoft.com> hunted and pecked:
>>> I have WinXP SP2 on my PC. A couple of days ago I noticed that when I
>>> booted my PC, I did not see the expansion arrow next to the time and
>>> date on the task (the system tray?). When I go into task bar
>>> properties I see the "hide inactive icons" option is greyed out along
>>> with the customize button. I am not quite sure how this happened. Has
>>> this issue been raised here before and if so was/is there a solution
>>> for this so I can customize the icons AND see the expansion arrow?
>>>
>>> I had seen one article in the knowledge base that indicated that the
>>> registry entries for iconstreams and pasticonsstream needs to be emptied
>>> in case it was corrupted. When I looked for these entries I noticed
>>> that both are empty in the registry.
>>>
>>> Any help to overcome these two issues that I have been seeing would be
>>> much appreciated.

Now what you need to do is try to determine what caused it. If something altered your policy settings without your permission, you
need to take a good look at what you were doing and what programs you were using around that time. It's highly unlikely that
whatever changed that setting was limited to just the one. It has probably added other restrictions that you have not noticed yet.
malware usually adds restrictions to a system in order to make it more difficult for the user to remove it.

--
Alec S.
news/alec->synetech/cjb/net

Malware is not the cause of everything that we do not like. There are many
unexplained happenings in Windows. Windows Updates can even change settings
that you wouldn't think they would bother with.

Heck, MS Word quite often changes my visual effects to the transition Fade
Effect. P****es me off too.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In news:%23CxyatcwGHA.888@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl,
Alec S. <@> hunted and pecked:
> Now what you need to do is try to determine what caused it. If something
> altered your policy settings without your permission, you need to take a
> good look at what you were doing and what programs you were using around
> that time. It's highly unlikely that whatever changed that setting was
> limited to just the one. It has probably added other restrictions that
> you have not noticed yet. malware usually adds restrictions to a system
> in order to make it more difficult for the user to remove it.
>
> --
> Alec S.
> news/alec->synetech/cjb/net

"Wesley Vogel" <123WVogel955@comcast.net> wrote in message news:%235qWAyhwGHA.3964@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> Malware is not the cause of everything that we do not like. There are many
> unexplained happenings in Windows. Windows Updates can even change settings
> that you wouldn't think they would bother with.
>
> Heck, MS Word quite often changes my visual effects to the transition Fade
> Effect. P****es me off too.

That's very true (especially about some settings being forced back to the default), but usually when a policy is altered,
specifically when a restriction is added, it is caused by malware trying to prevent the user from being able to clean it up.
Granted SP2 changed some things to lock Windows down, but I have never heard of this setting being altered. There is no reason for
Microsoft to prevent the user from manipulating that setting. Honestly, there isn't really any reason for a business to stop their
users from manipulating that setting either, other than perhaps to make it slightly more difficult to hide the fact that they are
using unauthorized programs. Of course that would be pointless since such programs already offer the user the option of not even
showing the icon, and using a hotkey to activate the interface instead (some even offer to be hidden from the task manager.)


--
Alec S.
news/alec->synetech/cjb/net

There aren't 779 registry tweaks here just because of malware.
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

290. Hide Inactive Icons - Greyed Out

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In news:u70hgqDxGHA.4576@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl,
Alec S. <@> hunted and pecked:
> "Wesley Vogel" <123WVogel955@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:%235qWAyhwGHA.3964@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>> Malware is not the cause of everything that we do not like. There are
>> many unexplained happenings in Windows. Windows Updates can even change
>> settings that you wouldn't think they would bother with.
>>
>> Heck, MS Word quite often changes my visual effects to the transition
>> Fade Effect. P****es me off too.
>
> That's very true (especially about some settings being forced back to the
> default), but usually when a policy is altered, specifically when a
> restriction is added, it is caused by malware trying to prevent the user
> from being able to clean it up. Granted SP2 changed some things to lock
> Windows down, but I have never heard of this setting being altered.
> There is no reason for Microsoft to prevent the user from manipulating
> that setting. Honestly, there isn't really any reason for a business to
> stop their users from manipulating that setting either, other than
> perhaps to make it slightly more difficult to hide the fact that they are
> using unauthorized programs. Of course that would be pointless since
> such programs already offer the user the option of not even showing the
> icon, and using a hotkey to activate the interface instead (some even
> offer to be hidden from the task manager.)
>
>
> --
> Alec S.
> news/alec->synetech/cjb/net