How To Fix Disappearing System Tray Icons in Vista

When icons start disappearing from Windows Vista's system tray—like the networking, volume control, or time display—and you can't restore them from the standard options menus, the itch to re-install can be strong indeed. I too faced this problem, a few clicks here and there got me the solution.

Normally we can re-enable the items by right-clicking on the Taskbar, choosing properties and going to the Notification Area tab:

Incase its grayed out, then we gotta do a workaround.

WORKAROUND 1: Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

If you see any of the following key names in the right-hand pane, delete them:

NoTrayItemsDisplay
HideClock
HideSCAPower
HideSCAVolume
NoAutoTrayNotify
HideSCANetwork
After deleting the values in that pane, browse to the following key and then repeat the process:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

You'll have to logout and then back in, and then most likely go back into taskbar properties and re-check the boxes for each.

WORKAROUND 2:
Just download, extract, and double-click on RestoreMyTrayIconsPlease.reg to enter the information into the registry.

http://www.howtogeek.com/geekers/RestoreMyTrayIconsPlease.zip

NOTE: Most of the problems are solved after installing SP1 for Vista.