Hide inactive icon

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

I run Windows XP and on the start task bar the little circle with the two
arrows on the right which hides inactive icons have disappeared. I have
checked in the properities and I have the Hide inactive icon box ticked but
nothing happens. The icons are fixed and they are not all there. My printer
icon is missing. Can anyone help please.
 
Palentrast said:
I run Windows XP and on the start task bar the little circle with the two
arrows on the right which hides inactive icons have disappeared. I have
checked in the properities and I have the Hide inactive icon box ticked
but
nothing happens. The icons are fixed and they are not all there. My
printer
icon is missing. Can anyone help please.
Click to expand...


Okay, you have the option enabled to hide inactive icons. Do you have ANY
inactive icons? Did you specifically configure the current crop of icons as
to whether they are always shown, always hidden, or hidden only when
inactive? Hiding icons only works if they are configured to always hide or
to hide when inactive (AND they actually do go inactive).

You enabled the *ability* to hide icons. Now you have to configure the
behavior for each icon. Right-click on the taskbar, click Customize button
in the Taskbar panel, and configure the icon behaviors how you want.

Note that the hiding icon feature of Windows XP has *never* been reliable.
If you end up losing the instance of explorer.exe that is managing the
desktop and load a new instance of explorer.exe, the icons won't behave as
you configured until you logoff and back on. Some applications never poll
for the state of their icons and only change the state when a specific event
occurs within the application, and the tray area can't do anything to force
the application to show an icon until the application decides to. So there
is a stability and recovery problem with the tray area regarding
hiding/showing icons plus applications are often pretty sloppy in how they
manage their tray icons.
 
I run Windows XP and on the start task bar the little circle with the two
arrows on the right which hides inactive icons have disappeared. I have
checked in the properities and I have the Hide inactive icon box ticked but
nothing happens. The icons are fixed and they are not all there. My printer
icon is missing. Can anyone help please.
Click to expand...

"Hide inactive icons" can take a while to kick in. Have seen it happen
within hours and within days. The printer icon supplied by Windows doesn't
appear unless the printer is in use. Third party software/drivers may add a
constant printer icon but these are extras - separate from the icon
supplied by Windows.
 
Hi Vanguard
Have just looked at customize button and they are all configurated to hide
when inactive, but as I said before they are just fixed and the circle with
<< in have disappeared.
 
Palentrast said:
Hi Vanguard
Have just looked at customize button and they are all configurated to hide
when inactive, but as I said before they are just fixed and the circle
with
<< in have disappeared.
Click to expand...


Do you have the option enabled to hide icons? If it is off, there won't be
any to hide since all will be shown. The chevron won't appear because there
is no difference in the tray area size if no icons are being hidden. If the
option is enabled, try disabling it, logging out, logging back in, and
enabling it again.
 
Sharon F said:
"Hide inactive icons" can take a while to kick in. Have seen it happen
within hours and within days. The printer icon supplied by Windows doesn't
appear unless the printer is in use. Third party software/drivers may add a
constant printer icon but these are extras - separate from the icon
supplied by Windows.
Click to expand...
Try going to "Add Remove Programs", "Add Remove Windows Components",
"Networking Services", "Details". Disable (uncheck) UPnP User Interface.
After trying all of the other recommended fixes, this one proved to be a
winner. No more problems with the tray icons.
 
This worked for me after all other attempts failed. Thank you "Bergerac. How
did you ever come up with this fix?
 
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