I have a Sony Vaio and use it with a home 801b wireless network. Usually when I am on the network a little connection icon (single computer) shows in the system tray. If I hover the pointer over it, this reveals the network name, connections speed and signal strength. Sometimes, even though I am on the network, the icon doesn't show up.
I find the icon very useful and would like to have it all the time. Why is it there sometimes and not there others? What might be the procedure to correct this?
If you're talking about a MS NT based O/S like XP, then it's a hit or miss situation as to when those icons will show in the job tray (area next to the clock).
I don't know man. I here it's due to user profile corruption, which if you search Google you may find something. Someone in another NG made a post for a possible fix for it. I don't know if it will fix it or not all I know is that MS should fix it as it's been happening for a long time on the NT based O/S.
Start, settings, taskbar and start menu, customize (bottom right), choose "always show" next to "wireless network connection", OK, Apply (bottom right corner), OK and you are done.
Duane Arnold" > all the time. Why is it there sometimes and not there others? What might
I am sure it's not going to hold, because that's not the problem with those icons showing or not showing when the NT based O/S is booted and the user logs on.
Thanks guys for the ideas. BTW, I am using Windows XP Home Ed on that laptop with SP2 and it's fairly up to date. I am going to try the tray icon traits through the Start button as mention in this thread and see if that nails it.
I am telling you now it's not going to work. That problem has been there since Win 2K that I know about.
I have several icons down in that system tray area on my laptop using XP Pro from SQL server to NOD32. I know they are running because they are services. But those icons are not there on this boot of the machine and logon process. The next time I boot this laptop, they will most likely show the ones that were missing, some others might not show or they all might show.
It happened when this laptop was running Win 2K too. It happened a couple of times on the desktop machines running those O/S(s) but since I don't boot the desktop machines that much, it really doesn't matter.
The icons in the system trey will disappear and is particularly true if it is a laptop where you are constantly booting the machine. ;-)
Sounds like there is an intermittant issue with explorer starting when you boot up. I've seen this before and in that case it was explorer was crashing and restarting. I have forgotten how we got explorer (the desktop) to stop crashing (it was some service I think). You might check the logs and see if an entry is being made when this has happens.
But if one boots the machine and the icons are a hit or miss situation showing in the system trey, then that's another matter, because there is no refresh of icons to be refreshed as the system is being booted. I know about the refresh icons properly thing with some applications and I have seen it happen with a little square (place holder) on the system trey but no icon showing. This is no icon showing at boot period and no place holder there either. It's simply not there.
I can use MSconfig and check off and back on something save and boot the machine and the icon would show. But I soon got tired of that as all the icons I have in the system tray are UI applications that interface with a service application I know is running.
I was told it was due to a corrupted user profile.
I've never seen the wireless icon disappear, but others certainly tend to be a problem. Here's some net wisdom on the topic. It seems to have something to do with UPnP. I'm not sure if any of the advice offered is applicable:
First of all, I don't have an absoltue answer/solution either, however I did find some interesting info. Apparently there is a system icon cache area in memory, it's fixed size (but you can change the amount of memory allocated for it), and as you run more stuff that needs a space in it, the memory for it/progs in it/addresses/etc are pushed down, and may get dropped off the list/swapped to virtual memory/etc. The main solution I have seen (again not guaranteed), is to add more main memory and increase the system icon cache size.
The best analogy I ran across, was that it is similar to the stack of cell phone numbers at a specific cell cite. As phones are registered (by calling in&out/turned on/ etc), the phone number is added to the top of the stack, and if the stack is full, the bottom one gets pushed off. Unpredictable, but the chance of a phone getting pushed of is limited by the cell provider increasing the list size/and memory.
If you don't mind spending a few bucks, there are some programs out there (about $15), that fix the cache size and stuff in real memory...
Reading the above URL, it seems the icon cache is sized by the
*NUMBER* of icons, folders, programs, shortcuts, etc, and not by their size. The default is 500, which I would think should be sufficient. I guess not.
I just followed the articles advice, created an entry, and set it to
2000. The desktop now repaints much faster. I dunno if this will help the disappearing system tray icon problem, but it seems like a worthwhile change.
Unfortunately, that is for the DESKTOP icon cache, NOT the SYSTEM TRAY icon cache. Two different things (but the system icon cache area has a setting for size of it's own)... Had a url for changing the SYSTEM tray icon cache area, but it's in my notes at home (in Idaho and i'm on vacation in Vegas.. Guess what happens in Idaho stays in Idaho :)
That may solve the annoying screen refreshes I get when I close down various folders.
Going back to the OP I have had successes with the system tray problem (in general and not necessarily to do with wireless) sometimes by running a script I found on the net called xp_pastitems.vbs and other times by running the NTREGOPT.EXE routine that comes with the free ERUNT registry backup program. Lots of hits in google for either routine.
That was the same desktop icon stuff, not the system tray icon area.. I did find part of an old post in one of my email folders..and that also has to do with what jeff said about PNP...
from
formatting link
I've got the same or at least a similar Problem. My Icons in the sytem tray >are gone
've used ERUNT for backing up the registry before applying various risky fixes. I still use System Restore for XP, but NTREGOPT for W2K. SCANREG for W95-98.
I hadn't tried NTREGOPT so I just ran it on my W2K home computah. 3% reduction in registry size to about 33Mbytes. Not too bad considering that I also use Registry Mechanic ($30)
formatting link
does the same thing.
One can go literally wild with registry tweaks. See:
formatting link
#53 is the xp_pastitems.vbs script. Looks harmless enough and is probably more useful cleaning up the mess that some USB removeable drivers leave behind. Worth a try, methinks.
I have the bad habit of blaming almost any anomoly on spyware, viruii, worms, trojans, downloaders, etc. Most often, it's true. When the machine starts acting weird, such as system tray problems, there's usually something wrong on startup. Most often, I suspect it's the result of a *partial* spyware or virus removal, where the vermin fails to start, or tries to repair itself. By the time I'm done with the usual virus and spyware removal tools and techniques, the system tray problems always seem to fix themselves.
[POSTED TO alt.internet.wireless - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]
In on Fri, 12 May 2006
23:20:17 GMT, Duane Arnold > it happen with the wireless connection icon. The problem comes from apps that
It can actually even be a problem at bootup. There is refreshing of icons when the settings and desktop are loaded, depending on what sequence applications load and what else is going on -- it's apparently a timing issue as well. Logging off and then back on will often bring missing icons back, but that's not a sure thing either.
Corrupted icon cache may be a factor, but apparently only because some applications don't refresh their System Tray icons properly.
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