Windows 7 sound and power icons

[Dalinkwent726]

Okay I feel like a complete noob for having to start a thread for this but I cant seem to find anything about my problem on the interwebs.

I am using a dell laptop and taskbar for some magical reason decided to stop showing me my power and sound icons. So I went to Bing found out that you can go to properties/customize/turn system icons on or off, but when I get there the icons that I need are greyed out and I have no clue how to fix that. If anyone knows I would appreciate the help, thanks.

 

[Yevrag35]

You could try this:

> run 'regedit.exe'

> goto key 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \TrayNotify'

> delete keys 'IconStreams' & 'PastIconsStream'

> start task manager, go to processes and kill explorer.exe

> go to applications in the task manager, hit new task and type 'explorer.exe'

> explorer will now reboot, and hopefully your icons should also return.

 

[Dalinkwent726]

Thanks, I actually received some help from you (and others) on another topic the other day, and in that you guys suggested running Malwarebytes. Well I ran that on my personal laptop just to make sure everything is on the up and up, and in doing so I must have deleted malware that was somehow stopping the icons from showing up. Thanks for the reply though I appreciate it.

 

[Yevrag35]

Well I ran that on my personal laptop just to make sure everything is on the up and up, and in doing so I must have deleted malware that was somehow stopping the icons from showing up. Thanks for the reply though I appreciate it.

No problem. That was actually going to be my next suggestion too. Sometimes, programs running in the background can cause the processes that load icons, applets, and gadgets to either freeze or just not load properly. Usually, it's by some sort of malware, but also sometimes by another corrupted program that you had installed previously.