Solved System tray icons disappear with ExplorerPatcher

New Install of Win11 26200.8655 with OpenShell 4.4.198 and ExplorerPatcher 26100.8457.70.2. The system tray icons (other than the clock) have disappeared entirely. For a few minutes there was a gear icon that, when clicked, showed volume, network, etc. but I want the volume, network icon, and language to show. Also not showing is the hidden menu arrow. I've tried toggling that in taskbar settings to no avail. Uninstalling ExplorerPatcher brings it all back, but I really want to keep the Win10-style QuickLaunch toolbar, so would like to get this working. Have had no trouble on other machines. Screenshot below. Grateful for any advice.

I did uninstall ExplorerPatcher, reboot, delete the registry entry for HKCU > Software > ExplorerPatcher and then reinstall EP. The gear icon reappeared for about ten minutes and then vanished again.

I suggest you reinstall the display driver in case it has been corrupted in use.


Denis

Thanks Denis. Done, but problem persists.

Problem solved now. Something in the Group Policy editor was wonky. I went in and set Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar > Hide the Notification Area to "Disabled" rather than "Not configured". This seems to have done the trick.

It was never EP. Always a good idea to check Group Policy. Something configured or disabled can cause problems.

Asclepiades said:

I went in and set Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar > Hide the Notification Area to "Disabled" rather than "Not configured".

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Don't see how this would make a difference as not configured and disabled do the same thing.

I’m sure they apply the same result initially, but I would assume (could be wrong) that Disabled would disable it from being hidden, even manually.

KevTech said:

Don't see how this would make a difference as not configured and disabled do the same thing.

View attachment 174146

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The difference is that one might be disabled (implied) while the other is explicitly set to disabled. The first case has 50% chance to be enabled and 50% chance to be disabled. The second is always disabled. I have seen that before in Group Policy Editor that some setting doesn't work as expected until explicitly set to the desired value.