Almost thought I had it licked. Tried what you said. Gave myself a
password and lo and behold, the volume icon was there. So I shut down all
the way to try it again. The second time, however, it didn't work; now,
however there's an icon in the system tray that has never been there before.
This is driving me crazy.
Jeannine, what's the new icon for? Since it's just now appearing, it may be
"the one" that is slow loading and causing the failure of other tray icons
to appear.
Another approach to this problem that you might try: Review the items that
are allowed to run at startup. Narrow these down just to items that you
need and want.
Click Start> Run and type in MSCONFIG
The System Configuration tool will open. Click on the StartUp tab where
you'll find a list of most programs (or parts of programs) that are
configured to load when Windows starts up.
On a clean install of Windows XP, this list is empty. As software is
installed, startup items get added. And for some wacky reason, many
software packages think they're the most important thing on your system and
will add themselves here. End result: a bucketful of startup items that you
do not need and an increased workload for startup that is totally
unnecessary.
On the startup page there are several columns.
Startup item: This could be a "friendly name" for the process but if a
friendly name is not provided by the program, it may just be a rather
cryptic name that sometimes reflects the name of the file that is loading.
Command: This column shows the command line that is being used to load the
startup item. It usually includes path to a file. The path might include
the name of a folder and that can be huge clue as to what program the
startup item belongs to.
Location: Shows where the "call" for the startup item originates from: a
registry key or the startup folder.
The MSCONFIG window is poorly sized and the information in each column may
not be fully visible. A column can be widened to view all characters but
you'll end up scrolling right and left to read everything.
Using the information for each startup item - identify what that startup
item does for you.
Examples:
It might add additional support for some hardware such as a mouse, keyboard
or printer. It might provide "resident protection" - antivirus and
anti-spyware programs fall into this category. And then there are the
convenience items such as automatic program updaters and parts of programs
that you might use everyday.
Now figure out which of these things you do *not* want running at every
startup. Change the configuration of the program so that it will not load
at startup. "Changing the configuration" may be as simple as removing a
shortcut from the startup folder of the start menu. Or opening the main
program and finding a menu that controls the program's startup behavior.
For example, my scanner added a startup tool that allows me to press the
buttons on the scanner to initiate a scan or copy. I use my scanner about
once a month. At that time, I can get the same thing done by manually
launching the "button support" for the scanner, or the scan utility or the
copy utility. So using MSCONFIG, I could see that the "call" loading scan
button program was located in the "common startup." That translates to "a
shortcut in the startup folder of the Start Menu."
Another program - a note taking tool called One Note - I prefer to start
using a shortcut I've added to the Quick Launch toolbar. The call for this
program shows as a registry key as the "location." This usually means a
related "setting" or "preference" within the program can be changed. So I
opened One Note and found a startup setting in Tools> Options that made the
available as an icon in the tray area and disabled that setting.
Example of startup items that I allow: software for my keyboard's
multimedia keys, burning software for my DVD burner, antivirus,
anti-spyware, a tool for my display card and a driver for my graphics
tablet.
The point of this exercise for you: By disabling extraneous tray items, the
tray items that you really want to see will have a better chance of loading
their icons successfully.
