Help! My volume control is gone!

Vista Home Premium
All of a sudden the volume icon is missing from task bar. I go to "Taskbar
and Start Menu Properties" and under System Icons/Select which system icons
to show and the choice for Volume is dimmed out and cannot be chosen. If it
makes any difference I went back to a system restore point yesterday - the
icon has ALWAYS been there so that shouldn't have affected it.

Regardless of the volume control not being in your notification area,
are you getting any sound at all?

If not, might be worth going to "Progs & Features" and removing the
soundcard software/drivers (or better via device manager) and letting
Vista reinstall after a reboot.

Go to Control Panel > Device Manager and verify that the sound
controller is enabled.

See the following:
Restore disappeared network and volume icon on notification area

[SHADOWCAPTAIN]

this happens to me occasionally and i just restart the computer and it always repairs the issue. it just happened last night, but i restarted and the volume icon is back in the systray.
iv'e seen a lot of replies talking about drivers on similar threads but sometimes the answer is not that 'techy'
hope that helps

[s!va-techustler]

have u checked if the taskbar--->notification area .--->which icons to be always shown ? is your volume on of it ?>

I noticed this problem a few days ago as well. What seemed to of fixed
it for me was restarting the computer and then going into the system
icons (Right click taskbar> Properties>Notification Area>System Icons
and click volume. It was grayed out earlier but now it was enabled.

[madgrandma]

thanks a lot HelpMike, worked a treat!