Notification Area Icon

[JamesJ]

I keep changing a Notification Area Icon to 'Show' but it keeps getting
changed to 'Hide when inactive'.
I do have the 'Hide inactive icons' checked. So what good does it do to be
able to change the icon setting to 'Show' in 'Customize' if it keeps
changing back?
Any way to keep this icon showing without unchecking 'Hide inactive
icons'???

James

 

[Richard Urban]

It may well be in the program itself that places the icon in the
notification area. If that's the case you likely can't change the behavior.

 

[JamesJ]

Yes, I would assume it is the program itself that places it's icon in the
notification area.
There's no setting in the progrm anywhere where one can set to display the
icon or not.

James

 

[Richard Urban]

Is it a program/service that is really needed? Many of them are not. The
programmer just places an icon there to feel important.

A good example is Frostwire. Why would you want the program running
continuously - even when you are not using it. But you can turn this
behavior off in the program options. Then the program only runs while in
active use.

Many other programs are the same. But, many can not be turned off in the
programs options. For those I use autoruns from Microsoft System internals.
You can disable "any" startup program. I always turn off one in particular
from Adobe Reader. There is no reason for it to start with the operating
system (even though it does not place an icon in the notification tray).

You can get the FREE autoruns here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

 

[JamesJ]

No. I'm real particular about services and what's not needed. This the icon
for my
anti-virus software.
It's odd. For the last week after purchasing an external hard drive I can't
get the
'Safely remove hardware' icon to go away (Not just hide it). Now an icon I
want showing
keeps getting set to 'Hide'.
I hope Windows 7 has a few enhancements.

James

 

[mazorj]

No. I'm real particular about services and what's not needed. This
the icon for my anti-virus software.
It's odd. For the last week after purchasing an external hard drive
I can't get the
'Safely remove hardware' icon to go away (Not just hide it). Now an
icon I want showing keeps getting set to 'Hide'.
I hope Windows 7 has a few enhancements.

Vista only allows you to set certain notification icons to "always or
never display" like the time and the speaker volume. For everything
else it seems to pull the most recently or frequently used icons into
the always-visible portion of the notification strip. Everything else
is hidden until you click on the < slide-out icon. If you've clicked
several times on the security program's icon during your current
session it might shift into the always-visible strip. Not the ideal
solution but it can work and be useful if you don't reboot or change
users, or displace it by clicking more frequently on other icons
there.

Many programs offer the option of whether to add tray icons, create a
desktop link, etc. during the installation routine. That doesn't
always prevent unwanted icons, but do pay attention to those as you do
the install. Some allow these to be reconfigured in the program's
settings. Other posters have offered insights into making changest in
Start-up, etc.

Having said that, now my own gripe: A nearly useless notification
that found its way onto my two HP Vista machines is a 3-icon cluster
showing the status for NumLock/CapsLock/ScrollLock. My guess is that
it's not Vista's fault, it's a replacement for the 3 keyboard LEDs
that lit up when any of the 3 was activated. [There are no LEDs on my
HP OEM keyboards.] If clicking on the icons turned the settings
on/off it would be useful and I could *almost* forgive manufacturers
for cheapskating on the LEDs. But all they did was save a buck or two
and give us this dumb static screen display that I can't see at a
glance [it's hidden in the slide-out] and can't delete. Fortunately I
found a way to have the CapsLock key make a loud up-boop and down-boop
whenever it's turned on/off. The audible alert is more useful than
the LEDs and icons combined. Some idiot decided that the CapsLock key
should be moved and doubled in size. Because I constantly hit
CapsLock accidentally when doing fast typing, I was retyping entire
sentences before I got the audible alarm functioning.

 

[JamesJ]

Thanks for the info.

James

No. I'm real particular about services and what's not needed. This the
icon for my anti-virus software.
It's odd. For the last week after purchasing an external hard drive I
can't get the
'Safely remove hardware' icon to go away (Not just hide it). Now an icon
I want showing keeps getting set to 'Hide'.
I hope Windows 7 has a few enhancements.

Vista only allows you to set certain notification icons to "always or
never display" like the time and the speaker volume. For everything else
it seems to pull the most recently or frequently used icons into the
always-visible portion of the notification strip. Everything else is
hidden until you click on the < slide-out icon. If you've clicked several
times on the security program's icon during your current session it might
shift into the always-visible strip. Not the ideal solution but it can
work and be useful if you don't reboot or change users, or displace it by
clicking more frequently on other icons there.

Many programs offer the option of whether to add tray icons, create a
desktop link, etc. during the installation routine. That doesn't always
prevent unwanted icons, but do pay attention to those as you do the
install. Some allow these to be reconfigured in the program's settings.
Other posters have offered insights into making changest in Start-up, etc.

Having said that, now my own gripe: A nearly useless notification that
found its way onto my two HP Vista machines is a 3-icon cluster showing
the status for NumLock/CapsLock/ScrollLock. My guess is that it's not
Vista's fault, it's a replacement for the 3 keyboard LEDs that lit up when
any of the 3 was activated. [There are no LEDs on my HP OEM keyboards.]
If clicking on the icons turned the settings on/off it would be useful and
I could *almost* forgive manufacturers for cheapskating on the LEDs. But
all they did was save a buck or two and give us this dumb static screen
display that I can't see at a glance [it's hidden in the slide-out] and
can't delete. Fortunately I found a way to have the CapsLock key make a
loud up-boop and down-boop whenever it's turned on/off. The audible alert
is more useful than the LEDs and icons combined. Some idiot decided that
the CapsLock key should be moved and doubled in size. Because I
constantly hit CapsLock accidentally when doing fast typing, I was
retyping entire sentences before I got the audible alarm functioning.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, James.

after purchasing an external hard drive I can't get the
'Safely remove hardware' icon to go away (Not just hide it).

You can stop that icon from bugging you pretty easily. Run Disk Management
(diskmgmt.msc). Right-click on that Disk in the left-most column of the
Graphical View. Choose Properties, and on the Policies tab, make sure to
choose to Optimize for Quick Removal, rather than for Best Performance.
Note that Quick Removal is the default, but your external HDD installer
might have changed it.

Then, any Writes to that external hard drive will be written to the disk
immediately, rather than transferred first to a cache and written to the HD
later. Thus, you can just "pull the plug" at almost any time without danger
of losing data in the cache that has not yet been written to the HD.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100

 

[JamesJ]

Thta's been set like that since I installed the drive. I just want the icon
to go away.

James

 

[Chuck Tanner]

Try using "TweakNow Win Secret 2009". It has several settings that can help
you clean up Vista.
Chuck

No. I'm real particular about services and what's not needed. This the
icon for my anti-virus software.
It's odd. For the last week after purchasing an external hard drive I
can't get the
'Safely remove hardware' icon to go away (Not just hide it). Now an icon
I want showing keeps getting set to 'Hide'.
I hope Windows 7 has a few enhancements.

Vista only allows you to set certain notification icons to "always or
never display" like the time and the speaker volume. For everything else
it seems to pull the most recently or frequently used icons into the
always-visible portion of the notification strip. Everything else is
hidden until you click on the < slide-out icon. If you've clicked several
times on the security program's icon during your current session it might
shift into the always-visible strip. Not the ideal solution but it can
work and be useful if you don't reboot or change users, or displace it by
clicking more frequently on other icons there.

Many programs offer the option of whether to add tray icons, create a
desktop link, etc. during the installation routine. That doesn't always
prevent unwanted icons, but do pay attention to those as you do the
install. Some allow these to be reconfigured in the program's settings.
Other posters have offered insights into making changest in Start-up, etc.

Having said that, now my own gripe: A nearly useless notification that
found its way onto my two HP Vista machines is a 3-icon cluster showing
the status for NumLock/CapsLock/ScrollLock. My guess is that it's not
Vista's fault, it's a replacement for the 3 keyboard LEDs that lit up when
any of the 3 was activated. [There are no LEDs on my HP OEM keyboards.]
If clicking on the icons turned the settings on/off it would be useful and
I could *almost* forgive manufacturers for cheapskating on the LEDs. But
all they did was save a buck or two and give us this dumb static screen
display that I can't see at a glance [it's hidden in the slide-out] and
can't delete. Fortunately I found a way to have the CapsLock key make a
loud up-boop and down-boop whenever it's turned on/off. The audible alert
is more useful than the LEDs and icons combined. Some idiot decided that
the CapsLock key should be moved and doubled in size. Because I
constantly hit CapsLock accidentally when doing fast typing, I was
retyping entire sentences before I got the audible alarm functioning.