Missing Volume icon from task bar

Question：My Volume icon, and my Network icon as well, have disappeared from the task bar and are "greyed" out in the Properties area.  I am using Windows Vista Home Premium SP2.  How can I get them back?

Answer 1：Is this problem new? If so, try using a system restore point.

Answer 2：It has happened 4 times in the last month, sometimes rebooting clears it, sometimes it just reappears, which is rare.  I tried an edit of the registry that worked for a week, then it is gone again


Answer 3：

Hey greyeagl53,

You can try to enable it from the Taskbar Right-click your Taskbar (bar at the bottom of your screen), select Properties, click the Notification Area tab, then under System icons, select the one that you wish to show (Clock, Volume, Network, or Power).

You can try to enable this from the Registry:

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up annd restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322756 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/ ) How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

 

1.	Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type the password, or click Allow .
2.	Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify
3.	In the Details pane, click the IconStreams registry entry.
4.	On the Edit menu, click Delete , and then click Yes .
5.	In the Details pane, click the PastIconsStream registry entry.
6.	On the Edit menu, click Delete , and then click Yes .
7.	Exit Registry Editor.
8.	Restart the Explorer.exe process. To do these, follow these steps: a. Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. b. On the Processes tab in Task Manager, click the explorer.exe process, and then click End Process two times. c. On the File menu, click New Tasks (Run) , type explorer , and then click OK . d. Exit Task Manager.

Here is an article that has a Fix-it on this, I suggest that you use the fix-it:

 

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/945011/en-us

If this does not work,  you can get back to us with the following answers.

Have you made any recent changes to your computer before this occurred?

Have you tried to restore your computer to earlier time?

As this was working fine before you can try to restore your computer to earlier point.
Here are the steps to restore your computer to earlier point:

 To restore the operating system to an earlier point in time, follow these steps:

1.     Click Start, type system restore in the Start Search box, and then click System Restore in the Programs list, if you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password or click Continue.
2.      In the System Restore dialog box, click Choose a different restore point, and then click Next.

3.      In the list of restore points, click a restore point that was created before you began to experience the issue, and then click Next.

4.      Click Finish.

Here is an article that will give you information System Restore :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936212/

Give these steps a try and let us know if it works.
Thanks.

Irfan H, .