Taskbar Icons Keep Disappearing

  • Thread starter Thread starter SP Goodman
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SP Goodman

Just installed XP w/SP2 from scratch.

Right after installing this week's Windows Critical Updates (6 of em), the
icons on the right side of the taskbar reduced in number drastically.

Before:
Fix-It 5, Messenger, HP 6800 printer, TabletWorks driver, Spybot S&D
Protection, MS Anti-Spyware, Volume Control. (I tell ya it was like the
stickers on the front of a race car)

After:
Fix-It 5, Messenger, TabletWorks driver

Beforehand the Hide Icons on the above were working. Now you can't even add
a Volume Control to the taskbar, and it was checked off to appear already
anyhow.

The most ominous is of course the Spybot and MSAS icons going missing. I
still get the Spybot protector messages, but not the MSAS. I'm on the verge
of doing a full data backup, saying the heck with the work genning this PC,
and doing another scratch install.

However a number of items on this newsgroup and others have made me wonder
if some kind of attack isn't in progress, taking as much protection software
offline as possible, before hitting with all it's got. Thus my questions
first, lest repeating the scratch install is just a waste of time. Help!
Thanks.

Stephen Goodman
* Cartoons about DVDs and Stuff
* http://www.medialinenews.com
* http://www.earthlight.net/HiddenTrack
* http://www.earthlight.net/Gallery
 
Hmm - I believe Robin Walker is our expert on this--but this sounds like a
Windows Shell bug. Whether/how it relates to SP2 I'm uncertain.

What happens if you log out and log in again?
 
See bottom for continuing sequence...

Bill Sanderson said:
Hmm - I believe Robin Walker is our expert on this--but this sounds like a
Windows Shell bug. Whether/how it relates to SP2 I'm uncertain.

What happens if you log out and log in again?
Click to expand...

PS- I have now run a number of things including Kelly's repair program and
the registry tweaks found there as well, to no change in this combination
problem: Absent or dysfunctional icons and Non-Hidability. I then found
CCleaner and ran it once to find a whole lot of non-flushed stuff under my
Java cache which were deleted. I then uninstalled and reinstalled MSAS,
updated and scanned to find nothing. Rebooted and found myself back to
square 1.5 without Spybot or MSAS. Per suggestion, logged out and back in,
to find all back to apparent normal.

If it's a Shell error why aren't more folks experiencing this? Or do most
folks not realize it's happening? Thanks.

Stephen Goodman
* Cartoons about DVDs and Stuff
* http://www.medialinenews.com
* http://www.earthlight.net/HiddenTrack
* http://www.earthlight.net/Gallery
 
Actually I just remembered that when Messenger was logging in, it popped a
little box up saying, "You have been signed out of .NET Messenger Service
because you signed in at another location."

Whassup with that?
 
I notice this when my two computers are networked and are connected to the
net at the same time. When restart one machine, say the network one, it
usually logs out the gateway machine on which messenger is connected and
tries sign on the guest machines.
 
SP Goodman said:
See bottom for continuing sequence...
Click to expand...
PS- I have now run a number of things including Kelly's repair program and
the registry tweaks found there as well, to no change in this combination
problem: Absent or dysfunctional icons and Non-Hidability. I then found
CCleaner and ran it once to find a whole lot of non-flushed stuff under my
Java cache which were deleted. I then uninstalled and reinstalled MSAS,
updated and scanned to find nothing. Rebooted and found myself back to
square 1.5 without Spybot or MSAS. Per suggestion, logged out and back
in, to find all back to apparent normal.

If it's a Shell error why aren't more folks experiencing this? Or do most
folks not realize it's happening? Thanks.
Click to expand...

In terms of why aren't more folks experiencing this--I don't believe I've
ever seen it myself--or perhaps I'm just too dense--as an old command-line
affecionado, I tend to ignore the silly shell much of the time--who cares
for all that glitzy stuff--although I have to say that every once in a while
it actually turns out to be easier to do something with Explorer than at the
command line these days.......

For me, the Show Hidden Icons arrow is always there, and always performs as
expected. At any rate, I've never found anything missing that should be
there.

Robin Walker, I believe, has a different experience, or at least is able to
recognize this syndrome, which I'll admit has figured in a couple of threads
in these groups.

I don't know anything about the whys and wherefors of who sees this one and
who does not, I'm afraid.
 
For me that means I've just turned on my laptop.

For you it could be Fast User Switching at work--not sure how that would
look, but I think it would look like two different machines.
 
I had this same exact problem on my XP SP2.

If I logged onto the computer after a reboot only a few of the usual many
applications would show up in the Notification Area. If I logged off and
back on then everything showed up as it should.

After seeing this on and off for a few weeks I finally cleared out my TEMP
files in my profile temp folder and my system c:\temp folder and rebooted.
Then all showed up on the initial logon.

Not sure though what was causing it. I will keep a close eye out for it to
see it it happens again.
 
--
Stephen Goodman
* Cartoons about DVDs and Stuff
* http://www.medialinenews.com
* http://www.earthlight.net/HiddenTrack
* http://www.earthlight.net/Gallery
Bill Sanderson said:
In terms of why aren't more folks experiencing this--I don't believe I've
ever seen it myself--or perhaps I'm just too dense--as an old command-line
affecionado, I tend to ignore the silly shell much of the time--who cares
for all that glitzy stuff--although I have to say that every once in a
while it actually turns out to be easier to do something with Explorer
than at the command line these days.......
Click to expand...

Yeah, yeah, I get you. I used to use CPM too. :P

My old test/QA roots show with this one I'm afraid. My desire here is to
make sure Something Else isn't happening. Why for instance are the
Fix-It/AV and TabletWorks drivers spared this treatment? It could be said
however that ignoring these (possible series of) symptoms is a blind
acceptance of the Shell despite its operation/malfunction. Can't happen
here I'm afraid. In the words of the first assailant from "Dirty Harry", "I
gots ta know."
For me, the Show Hidden Icons arrow is always there, and always performs
as expected. At any rate, I've never found anything missing that should
be there.
Click to expand...

It began happening to my wife's XP Pro machine within 24 hours of this
emerging, despite no file copies, downloads etc happening between us - just
the LAN connection through the router/modem. All appears to be well at this
point after a number of steps, and I'm tempted to try to recreate the
problem to see if there's a singular point where it begins to happen.
Robin Walker, I believe, has a different experience, or at least is able
to recognize this syndrome, which I'll admit has figured in a couple of
threads in these groups.
Click to expand...

Is Robin on this newsgroup?

--
Stephen Goodman
* Cartoons about DVDs and Stuff
* http://www.medialinenews.com
* http://www.earthlight.net/HiddenTrack
* http://www.earthlight.net/Gallery
 
Andre Da Costa said:
I notice this when my two computers are networked and are connected to the
net at the same time. When restart one machine, say the network one, it
usually logs out the gateway machine on which messenger is connected and
tries sign on the guest machines.
Click to expand...

There's no gateway machine here - two PCs into a Solwise router/modem, which
is a good way to offload the work and let the PCs just be PCs. They each
have their own account via Messenger/.NET, so this originally made me wonder
if my account hadn't been hijacked.

This problem has not happened since I apparently corrected the
non-disappearing icons problem - but I wonder if anyone with my config has
encountered this?
 
Bill Sanderson said:
For me that means I've just turned on my laptop.

For you it could be Fast User Switching at work--not sure how that would
look, but I think it would look like two different machines.
Click to expand...

Nope. I consider multiple-user configurations a series of problems waiting
to happen, albeit at times a necessity in a family with children and a
resultant budget - but I continue to hope there's less emphasis on it in the
development of future versions of Windows. PCs and similar devices are
still getting cheaper and smaller, and in the future hopefully PC sharing
will be a thing of the past, like Party Lines. Ugh!
 
--
Stephen Goodman
* Cartoons about DVDs and Stuff
* http://www.medialinenews.com
* http://www.earthlight.net/HiddenTrack
* http://www.earthlight.net/Gallery
johnny joe said:
I had this same exact problem on my XP SP2.

If I logged onto the computer after a reboot only a few of the usual many
applications would show up in the Notification Area. If I logged off and
back on then everything showed up as it should.

After seeing this on and off for a few weeks I finally cleared out my TEMP
files in my profile temp folder and my system c:\temp folder and rebooted.
Then all showed up on the initial logon.

Not sure though what was causing it. I will keep a close eye out for it
to see it it happens again.
Click to expand...

My wife's machine didn't have this problem, and her CD was a pre-SP2 one.
Mine included SP2, so you KNOW there is a difference someplace.
 
I hate top-posting!

I had to remove/clear/reinstall both Spybot and MSAS and run CCleaner, and
they didn't reappear until a Logoff-Logon sequence was performed.

Rebooted, icons gone! Logoff-Login, icons back! And my wife's PC is
showing the same problem. I know it's solved via a [grumble] Workaround,
but it's certainly worthy of a fix, isn't it? Come on, this can't be unique
to this house.
 
Robin posts here occasionally--the networking group would be one place I've
seen him, I think.
 
Thanks--many aspects of the Windows shell are greek to me-and this is one of
them, I'm afraid. If you do manage to come up with a reliable reproduction
of this symptom, I believe I could get it to some folks who would be
interested, though.
 
Nope. I consider multiple-user configurations a series of problems
waiting to happen, albeit at times a necessity in a family with children
and a resultant budget - but I continue to hope there's less emphasis on
it in the development of future versions of Windows. PCs and similar
devices are still getting cheaper and smaller, and in the future hopefully
PC sharing will be a thing of the past, like Party Lines. Ugh!
Click to expand...
Actually, with Fast User Switching, this is almost like have time division
multiplexing on the phone line--both users are actually running at the same
time, but only one can see the screen and keyboard. So--ubiquitous hardware
or not, I think this won't go away--and programs like Microsoft Antispyware
need to be able to deal with it better than the current beta manages.

As to the .NET message--I'm stumped--you seem to have ruled out all the
usual suspects. I'm trying to see how some significant performance
issue--interference from Microsoft Antispyware in some way--might cause this
but I don't see it.
 
Unfortunately I'm reminded of the continuing volitility of the "Identity"
process. No doubt the idea of more than one person using the same PC was
necessary in the mid-to-late 90s, especially at home if you had a family.
Not really as much today, given the relative cost of building a new PC, if
not also the multiple hardware platforms that perform "PC" tasks today.

Corruption of Identities information also causes big problems with Outlook
Express, leading to entire backup-restores that cause one to think of OE as,
well, unstable. When it's most likely NOT Outlook Express that deserves the
blame, but rather aspects of Identities handling.

I *am* curious as to why I haven't seen this happening before though.
 
Bill Sanderson said:
Actually, with Fast User Switching, this is almost like have time division
multiplexing on the phone line--both users are actually running at the
same time, but only one can see the screen and keyboard. So--ubiquitous
hardware or not, I think this won't go away--and programs like Microsoft
Antispyware need to be able to deal with it better than the current beta
manages.
Click to expand...

Ugh! The copper-like taste of "Internet Connection Sharing" [shudder].
There's no substitute for hardware sometimes.
As to the .NET message--I'm stumped--you seem to have ruled out all the
usual suspects. I'm trying to see how some significant performance
issue--interference from Microsoft Antispyware in some way--might cause
this but I don't see it.
Click to expand...

I've not encountered the problem involving slow window-opens and stuff as
was occurring during the problem not being resolvable. Mind you a restart
STILL requires one to log out and then in again - a RIDICULOUS state for any
software to be left in! - so I don't think of this as a resolution, or a
cosmetic issue either.

No word from MS on this either. This and the newly-discovered "Oh we're
sorry but the help file was wrong and there's no scanner sharing under XP
after all" situation is getting me irritated. Did Scientologists infect the
development team?


--
Stephen Goodman
* Cartoons about DVDs and Stuff
* http://www.medialinenews.com
* http://www.earthlight.net/HiddenTrack
* http://www.earthlight.net/Gallery
 
Not so cheap in a "standard familly". Another reason to have accounts is
avoiding to run risky things with too much rights
 
SP Goodman said:
Rebooted and found myself back to square
1.5 without Spybot or MSAS. Per suggestion, logged out and back in,
to find all back to apparent normal.
If it's a Shell error why aren't more folks experiencing this? Or do
most folks not realize it's happening?
Click to expand...

The unexpected disappearance of icons from the System Notification Area
(formerly known as the System Tray), even when they are configured always to
show, appears to be a long-standing bug in XP. As you have already
discovered, the missing icons always return if you Log Off and Log On again.
But if you Restart, the icons disappear again.

The problem appears to be a little non-deterministic: no-one has found a set
of rules that guarantees it will happen, so that the Windows shell team
developers could investigate what it going on. The problem has however been
experienced by many users.

However, there is one heavily implicated issue which might be provoking the
problem, and most people suffering from this problem agree that it could be
an issue with them: delays (possibly networking) during the initialisation
of some of the processes which put up the Notification Area icons. In other
words, if one of the earlier processes which posts a Notification Area icon
is held up for some reason, then later processes fail to post their
Notification Area icon at all. Typical reason for a delay might be waiting
for a network response which never comes, or a crash which causes a minidump
in the background.

In your case, I would guess that the HP network printer driver is a prime
suspect for causing this effect. If you have not already done so, I
recommend that you update your HP printer drivers to the latest version
(dated 10-2004) from their site. Also, ensure that your printer is online
and functional when you start Windows.
 
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