Windows Defender Icon in Notification Area (near clock) XP

[Guest]

I have read MANY posts regarding the WD icon appearance in the area of the
clock on the xp toolbar (now known to me as the "notification area".

WD version 1.1.1593.0
Engine version 1.1.2704.0
Definition verswion 1.20.2832.2
Product ID 81664-4410741-04730

Most of the posts regard the fact that TOOLS/OPTIONS/choose when the icon
appers in the notification area to be set to ALWAYS.

Mine is set to always. I have no hidden icons in the notification area.
The WD icon is not in the "notification area". It is sometimes, but MOST of
the time it is not. Any info on an explanation or solution? Thank you. jb

 

[Dave M]

Since I see your running XP, the most usual answer to this question (which
occurs regularly) is that there's a bug in XP which has still not been
nailed down. I'm not sure if the problem extends to Vista, at least it
hasn't been mentioned in this group yet.

Take a look at this page and the link from this page for the standard
possible fix sequence which even has a name, the Ostuni Workaround:

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/trayicons.htm

Let us know how you make out.

 

[Dave M]

I remembered another possible fix... putting a simple shortcut to the
systray exec in the startup folder, which I did myself, either as a test or
to solve the same problem you're having... I can't remember. It's
referenced in here for example:
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=38455

....and I stumbled across the encyclopedia of missing icons again, which is
here in all it's drawn out glory:
http://winhlp.com/?q=node/16

 

[Guest]

Mr. Dave,
Thank you for your extended efforts to assist. I managed to get the icon to
show with the 3rd source you provided (http://winhlp.com/?q=node/16). It
involved setting SS(something or other) from the default of Manual to
Automatic and rebooting. So far so good, and thank you very much. jb

 

[Dave M]

Great, The Diez Workaround, I think you saw how convoluted finding your
specific fix can be... any one or a multiple of the various options may
work. The more I think about it, I believe that I was having problems not
with Defender's icon, but with another security program. I tried the
systray.exe shortcut first and got lucky on my first attempt.

 

[Guest]

What a shame. The icon has decided to not show again, and I am thinking of
uninstalling WD until MS can get it running right. Thank you for all your
effort.

jb

 

[mdck]

It leads me to believe it's something with startup not seeing it. Comments?

 

[Bill Sanderson]

There are several possible causes, but absent the icon being intentionally
turned off in Windows Defender, the most common cause is a bug in XP. I'm
not sure how to characterize the bug--perhaps you are correct that it is
something that happens at startup, except that it really is a bug in icon
visibility, not one involving the app actually not running.

 

[mdck]

That is a relief. Interestingly, Since the posting, I found that logging out
and logging back in temporarily fixes the problem.
Does that go along with the startup theory?

 

[Bill Sanderson]

It goes with the observed behavior of the XP bug, but I'm not clear enough
about how the XP shell works to say. Here's something to try: Start task
manager (start run taskmgr enter or ctrl-alt-delete) and kill explorer.
That should wipe out the desktop--did I say close apps first? Then, do a
start, run and run explorer. That should bring everything back. What
happens with the icon? I really don't know what this proves though, either
way. Seems like a bug relating to the shell, though.