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Hi, this is HP laptop running on Windows Vista. There is some problem in the system tray i guess. Whenever i go to Taskbar notification area dont know why my battery meter does not show up and all the check box is grayed out as is the volume box. I dont know what could be the reason. Can anyone please help me out with this?
Many thanks.
I have a Dell laptop too running on Vista Home Premium. In my case the battery meter only appears when i am running the laptop on battery only. Whenever it is connected on main power, the battery meter disappears. See if this is not the case with you. Are you running on mains power?
I appreciate your help IRVING but i dont think that could be the reason because i even have a Toshiba laptop and its battery meter remains always visible, no matter it is running on battery or connected to main power. By the way, my HP is on battery and still its wont show up.
Hello chimaan. Usually the battery shows and has a cable and plug icon when mains power is on. You should first charge the battery 100% before this will happen on first use. To find the tick box for this icon right click the taskbar, chose Properties, Notification Area tab. Under System Icons select Power. If this is not there your battery is not installed ob you laptop.
This seems to be some bug in Vista, it happened to me too.
I found a fix on some other forum, and it worked for me.
1. First you need to open the Windows "Run" dialog, which you can find either in the "Accessories" folder in the "Start" menu, or by pressing "Windows Key + R"
2. Next type in "regedit" which will bring up the Registry Editor.
3. Now go to "Edit" and "Find..." (or Ctrl + F) and search for "iconstreams".
4. When the results come up, delete the keys "IconStreams" and "PastIconStreams".
5. Restart the computer, and recheck the missing icons in the taskbar properties.
This works, but only temporarily it seems. My icons disappeared again, and I found the keys had come back, but getting rid of them fixed it again.
Well, i too use to have this problem but in my case when the battery meter disappears i just needed to reboot the system and it comes back. Many of such users also use to get it back by simply login Off and On once. You can give it a try.
I recently experienced the same exact problem: both volume and battery meter disappeared from task bar and were grayed out in the notification area. After one automatic update my volume option became active again, and after Service Pack 1 installation, my Power option was active again.
Hopefully, nothing else will mysteriously disappear! Hope this helps!
Note in response to my previous reply: upon installing additional updates after SP1, my volume and network icons disappeared again! and they were greyed out in the notification area!
However, after reading on another forum, I learned that all I needed to do was to restart my computer, and it worked! They reappeared and all 4 notification areas in the taskbar properties are again active... for now at least...I'm keeping my fingers crossed...
I didnt read through all of the posts but i had a similar issue, I lost my battery and network icons from my system tray after installation of Vista service pack 1 on my HP Pavillion dv2718 laptop and restarts did not help at all. I also had the options to turn them on greyed out in the toolbar properties. In addition, my computer would not re-initiate after it went into sleep mode and would crash and have to be hard reset anytime it went into sleep. I did not feel comfortable messing with the regedit.
After many hours with vista tech support, a senior tech called me back the next day and had me update my BIOS from the HP website specific to my machine. There was a more current version available so we downloaded that. After that, it was all back to good. Thought you all may want to know. - try this first!
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...72c8e1033.mspx
I think this might help .. I had the same prob .. but it appeared to be so simple :) <at least for me> so i thought i could post the solution here..
try to read :
How can I hide the battery icon in the notification area? posted in the above link .. and just reverse the operation.. hope that helps..
Regards
reficuL
I have the same issue for an XPS 1530. It's definitely an issue with Vista and it also happened after I installed 'updates'. I have tried shutting down once but this did not bring the icons back. Any clues?
The last post is not helpful as all three boxes (Power, Network and Volume) are greyed and cannot be selected.
I could not get my boxes for power and volume to show either - I rebooted - did a Glary Utilities registry clean up and then did a search on internet for how to hide battery icon as reficuL up above suggested. Then I followed the instructions and was able to ck boxes to have them show. The following are the instructions I got:
1.Right-click the taskbar, and then click Properties.
2.Click the Notification Area tab.
3.Under System icons, clear the Power check box.
If the Power check box is unavailable, your computer may not have a battery installed. Or, some taskbar settings may be managed by your system administrator. For more information, see Why won't Windows allow me to change a system setting?
NOW I will restart and see if it shows up. If it does not I will come back and make another post.
See this Link
This can be due to improper installation. There are very less utilities and way by which the icons on the system tray disappears. It is better that if you can re-install the application you are using. For the volume icon go in Control Panel and look for sound settings. On the first window you can see a checkbox which states to put an notification icon in the system try. Tick the check box and reboot.