The Problem

The system tray (in short: systray, nowadays also called notification area) is the icon strip normally located near the right end of the task bar, next to the clock.

Some Windows XP installations show a peculiar defect in that some systray icons disappear or, rather, do not appear, when the system is booted and the user logs on. The problem is even more prevalent on systems with autologon. The most frequently affected icons seem to be the speaker icon (sound volume) and the power/energy icon.

This has nothing to do with the hide inactive icons settings. The defect shows up when you don't have any icons set for to be hidden.

The main cause appears to have something to do with the UPnP User Interface. (By the way, don't mistake UPnP for PnP, Plug-n-Play, which is mostly a different thing.)

Microsoft has not taken notice. The causes are obscure. Some users report successes with various changes that influence the boot and logon timing, but these changes do not reliably solve the problem. Often they make the problem occur less often though and make it bearable.

 The Solution

1. What exactly does the Forced Shutdown setting do?

Windows applications receive a message that informs them that the system will shut down now. An application can halt the shutdown process to allow the user to save modified data, for example. If this option is checked, the system will shut down regardless of whether the application rejects it. I strictly recommend not to use this option, unless you have a good reason for it.

2. Will only the shutdown be forced or will other functions like restart also use this setting?

  Shutdown and Reboot only.

3. Does the program only work when I shut down the computer through it or does it also work when I use the normal Windows method of shutting down?

TrayIconsOK! must do some preparation work before the system will shut down or reboot. This is impossible to do while a normal Windows shutdown is in progress. This is the reason why you have to use the shutdown function through the utility's menu.

4. Why does the progress display begin to count down from 15 seconds, although I entered a delay of 10 seconds in the options?

I just add 5 additional seconds to the delay (the average time to actually load the desktop). However I do not recommend to set a delay of less than 20-30 seconds, because that may cause incorrect desktop loading.

5. Is there a way to suppress the progress display?

Not yet. I will add this feature to version 1.2 :)

Help and support: Alex Milner

 Copyright (c) 2007, Alex Milner. All Right Reserved.