Trayman problem

[snidely]

Hi folks,
We are always exhorted to close down everything we can before installing
new software and programs like "enditall" say that they will shut down
everything except explorer.exe and systray.exe.

When I look in my Task Manager, I can't find systray.exe or anything
similar.

My event viewer shows this error message: "The TrayMan service failed to
start due to the following error:
The system cannot find the path specified." This error appears at every
boot.

When I use the link to the "Help and Support Center", it tells me to
contact the person with administrative rights, or some such. This would
be me, actually, and I contacted me and learned that I don't know how to
proceed to resolve this situation.

My systray (or is it Notification Area in XP?) is right where it should
be and is fully functional.

(I don't know if it's related, but my System Restore settings panel is
grayed out and won't start or stop SR. It will pretend to create
restore points, but the System Volume Information folder stays empty.)

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Steef

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Hi folks,
We are always exhorted to close down everything we can before
installing new software and programs like "enditall" say that they
will shut down everything except explorer.exe and systray.exe.

When I look in my Task Manager, I can't find systray.exe or anything
similar.

That's because it's a Windows 9X service. The oft-repeated advice
that you shouldn't shut it was wrong even there. Contrary to
popular belief, it wasn't responsible for providing the system
tray itself. It just provided several services that ran in the
system tray: the Battery Meter, PC Card Status, Volume Control,
Quickres and Task Scheduler.

My systray (or is it Notification Area in XP?) is right where it
should be and is fully functional.

As I pointed out above, don't mix up the terms "systray" and
"system tray." "Systray" is the name for the Windows 9X service,
and "System tray" is the informal name that most people use for
the the area in the task bar where the clock and icons for
running background programs are shown.

By the way, the official name for what most of us call the
"system tray" was always the "System Notification Area," even
back in Windows 9X days.