Windows 7 – How to Restore Missing Volume Icon in System Tray

audionotificationswindows 7

So unexpectedly my volume control is missing from the system tray on Windows 7. I goto the start menu and type volume and choose "Show or hide volume (speaker) icon on the taskbar" and it's disabled in there and set to off. I then click "customize notification icons" at the bottom and on the list that shows up, I see at the bottom "Volume" with the dropbox icon over it.

Does dropbox obliterate my volume control on accident? Anyone else have anything like this? Got any other ideas for me to try?

forgot to mention: All the volume functions work, it's just the icon that's missing. I can control the volume by the keyboard or through the actual volume control (by pulling up the control panel widget). I just don't have the icon on the systemtray. All the rest of the system works tho.

Best Answer

This can happen from time to time, but it is very rare and usually a restart will fix it.

The three solutions to try are (in order of convenience):

  1. Restart the Windows Audio service.

    • open the Start menu
    • right-click on Computer and select Manage
    • navigate to "Services and Applications" → Services
    • right-click on Windows Audio and choose Restart

    alt text

  2. Restart Explorer.exe.

    • press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and select Task Manager
    • go to the Processes tab and find explorer.exe
    • right-click it and select "End Process". Make sure you do not have any file operations (copy/move etc.) going. Explorer should automatically restart.
    • If it doesn't, then in Task Manager, go to File → "New Task (Run...)", type in explorer, click OK and it should be back.

    alt text

  3. Restart the computer.

Related Question