Restore System Icons in the Notification Area in Windows 7

Sometimes when you boot into Windows, the system icons like volume, network and the power icon no longer show up in the notification area (system tray). This is very annoying because you can no longer quickly open the sound, network and power related settings from the notification area. This happens because of a registry problem in Windows 7. You can easily fix this problem by clearing some of the misbehaving entries in the Windows registry. Here is how :

  1. Open Windows Registry Editor by clicking on the Start Menu, typing regedit and pressing Enter.

    Restore System Icons in Windows 7

  2. In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following registry key :
    HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareClassesLocal SettingsSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionTrayNotify

    Restore System Icons in Windows 7

  3. Select the values labled IconStream and PastIconsStream by clicking on them and then click the Delete key on your keyboard to delete these values. You can also right-click on these values and then select Delete from the right-click menu.

    Restore System Icons in Windows 7

  4. Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
  5. When your computer has restarted and the system icons are still missing, then you have to take a few more steps. Right-click anywhere on the taskbar and select Properties. This would open the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties window.
  6. In the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties window, select the Taskbar tab. Then click on the Customize button under the Notification Area category.

    Restore System Icons in Windows 7

  7. Click on the Turn system icons on or off in the Control Panel window that opens up.

    Restore System Icons in Windows 7

  8. In the System Icons settings window, select the ON behaviors status for various System Icons to turn them on and click on the OK button to save the settings.

    Restore System Icons in Windows 7

    This should make all your system icons visible again. You might have to restart your system once more if the system icons are not shown immediately.