Taskbar Notification Icons Missing on Boot

Question

Hello all,   I have a Precision M6300 that was shipped with XP SP2 32-bit installed.  Ever since the day I got it I've been finding that often on bootup, almost all of the icons I expect to see in the taskbar notification area are missing.  ie. XP Power Meter, Windows Defender, QuickSet and many more.   The aforementioned programs are running in the task list, it's just that their icons are not being displayed.  The only icons that reliably show up are the Ethernet interface and my Avast A/V scanner.  Starting new processes eg. Pidgin or Outlook does show their icons there.   It does this every 2-3 boots.  If I reboot several times it eventually gets things right and the icons show up.  This is getting to be a real pain; eg. since the power meter won't show I can't tell how much battery life I have left.  And since the removable devices icon doesn't show, I can't Stop plugged devices like USB drives before disconnecting them.   This Precision has done this since the day it was delivered. I've updated all the drivers from Dell, and just updated to XP SP3, but it's just done it again.   Anyone seen this before?  Any clues or tips?  I shouldn't have to wipe a factory install and start over.   Thanks, Carl

Nebon · Answer

Hi Daemon5150,   So far this seems to be a bug in XP and nothing can be done about it. You can however try to reduce its frequency, read more here.   Have a great day Nebon

Daemon5150 · Answer

Incidentally, it has nothing to do with XP's hiding of inactive icons; I disabled this right off the bat.

Daemon5150 · Answer

Update:   I followed the suggestion in the link above to hide the uPnP icon and this seems to have resolved it. Thanks! Message Edited by Daemon5150 on 07-30-2008 02:06 PM

Windows General

Was this post helpful?