Initial Problem:

Sometimes you can find that your Windows Vista PC running without some necessary icons in the notification area: Network, Volume, Power (for laptops). And you cannot add them from Taskbar Properties because they are greyed out.

This article desribes the solution for this problem.

Solution:

Go through the following troubleshooting steps to resolve this problem:

1. Open the Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc), go to the "Processes" tab, select "explorer.exe" and click "End Process":

2. Open the "Applications" tab and click "New Task..." at the bottom-right of the window:

3. In the message box that pops up type in "explorer.exe" and hit "OK":

4. Explorer.exe will reload. If you see the icons now then you are done. If there are still no icons proceed to step 5.

5. Go to Start > Run (or Windows-key + "R"), type in "regedit" and hit "OK":

Be very careful editing registry. Do not modify or delete anything except listed in this article. This is good idea to back up your registry before doing any changes to it.

6. Navigate to the key "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \TrayNotify":

7. Delete the values "IconStreams" and "PastIconsStream":

8. Repeat Steps 1-3. Now the problem should be fixed.