When Windows Explorer (Explorer.exe) crashes or restarted, is there a script to restore the missing system tray icons?

Almighty1 · Monday at 10:48 AM

I had been meaning to ask but whenever Windows Explorer (Explorer.exe) crashes or restarted, many of the system tray icons will be missing. What I usually do is go through System Informer (formerly Process Hacker) with all the processes in alphabetical order and then compare the process names to see if the corresponding system tray icon is there or not. If not, then I restart the process which kills and starts the same process again and the system icon for that process will be restored. Is there a script or something that can restore only the missing system tray icons after the Windows Explorer crashes or restarted? Restarting Windows obviously will load all the system icons. Does @Brink have a tutorial or script for this? Thanks!

Brink · Monday at 10:54 AM

Hello Vincent,

Normally, the system icons should automatically reload when the explorer process restarts if they run at startup or currently open.

Does manually restarting the explorer process when this happens restore them?

Restart Windows Explorer.exe Process in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to restart the explorer.exe process as needed in Windows 11. The explorer.exe process is the user shell for Windows, and is used by such items as the desktop, File Explorer, Start menu, notification area, and taskbar. Restarting the explorer.exe process is to...

www.elevenforum.com

If not, then you could test resetting the notification icons below to see if that may allow to reload afterwards.

Reset Notification Icons on Taskbar System Tray in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to reset the notification icons cache to fix any corrupted icons and remove any old icons from the taskbar system tray for your account in Windows 11. The system tray on the taskbar corner and taskbar corner overflow menu in Windows 11 shows the notification...

www.elevenforum.com

Almighty1 · Monday at 11:34 AM

Brink said:
Hello Vincent,

Normally, the system icons should automatically reload when the explorer process restarts if they run at startup or currently open.

Does manually restarting the explorer process when this happens restore them?

Restart Windows Explorer.exe Process in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to restart the explorer.exe process as needed in Windows 11. The explorer.exe process is the user shell for Windows, and is used by such items as the desktop, File Explorer, Start menu, notification area, and taskbar. Restarting the explorer.exe process is to...

www.elevenforum.com

If not, then you could test resetting the notification icons below to see if that may allow to reload afterwards.

Reset Notification Icons on Taskbar System Tray in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to reset the notification icons cache to fix any corrupted icons and remove any old icons from the taskbar system tray for your account in Windows 11. The system tray on the taskbar corner and taskbar corner overflow menu in Windows 11 shows the notification...

www.elevenforum.com

Hello Shawn:

The answer to the first is no as there are a few that I always need to kill and restart the following processes since they are missing and that's restarting the explorer process using your script that adds the restart entries to the right click on Desktop Restart Explorer options:

1. CCleaner64.exe which is CCleaner
2. D4.exe which is Dimension 4 - it's to sync the time
3. FxSound.exe
4. memreduct.exe
5. nearby_share.exe which is Google Quick Share
6. nVidia Notification Tray icon and GPU Activity Icon which is fixed with right click Desktop then NVIDIA Control Panel and in NVIDIA Control Panel, basically goto the Desktop menu and uncheck and then check Show Notification Tray Icon and Display GPU Activity Icon in Notification area
7. pdf24.exe which is PDF24 Creator
8. PremierColor.exe which is Dell PremierColor
9. SnagitCapture.exe which is Techsmith Snagit

Windows Explorer crashing on it's own unless severe atleast in 11 will actually show all the system tray icons. In 10, it would have required restarting all the processes similar to manually killing and restarting the explorer.exe process.

I already tried resetting the notification icons using the method you mentioned since that is more for corrupted icon caches and the icons would be missing when logging into Windows which is what that fixes as this problem is nothing new, had seen it with Win 95, 98, 2000, XP, 7, 10 and 11. Whenever the Explorer.exe process is killed and restarted or Explorer crashes, there will always be a few missing system tray icons that only will show when the processes for those are manually killed and restarted. Windows when logging in will always show all the icons, it's only when explorer crashes on it's own or when the explorer.exe process is killed and started again that will cause the problem.

garlin · Monday at 11:28 PM

I kinda confused by what's happening. Maybe you can run a simple PowerShell script the next time Explorer crashes.

The notification icons for apps pinned to the sys tray, are stored in a registry cache. Normally when an app wants to present itself it changes the IsPromoted setting to 1. And flips it back to 0 when it properly exits.

After your Explorer has crashed, several different things might be true:

1. Explorer has corrupted the icon notification cache. So the running processes you expect to be registered are missing. Restarting your logon session will force all the normal apps to redo the entire process from scratch.

2. Explorer has not corrupted the icon notification cache. But the wrong value for IsPromoted is stored, leading to the systray thinking it doesn't need to display the app icon. In theory a simple script to flip them back would restore what you had before.

The script will report what apps (.EXE's) are known to Explorer, and whether it thinks they should be visible or not. Depending on how well it matches what you've got running may tell us if a fix-script can be made.

ReportOnIcons.ps1

Code:

    foreach ($GUID in (Get-ChildItem -Path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings' -Name)) {
        $ChildPath = "HKCU:\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings\$($GUID)"
        $App = (Get-ItemProperty -Path $ChildPath -Name ExecutablePath -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).ExecutablePath
        if ((Get-ItemProperty -Path $ChildPath -Name IsPromoted).IsPromoted) {
            "$App is visible"
        }
        else {
            "$App is not visible"
        }
    }

dacrone · Tuesday at 12:27 AM

yeah anytime i restart explorer, i have to launch the nvidia control panel and uncheck each of the system tray options and recheck them to get the systray icons to show again

i've tried to script it before but never had a successful test. just gave up and added the nvidia control panel to my context menu for quick access. only real reason to care about its tray icons is the GPU activity "task manager" type to show all processes using the gpu

this has been an issue for many revisions of windows though...
.https://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/219651-systray-icons-some-programs-dont-re-appear-after-explorer-restart-2.html

Almighty1 · Tuesday at 9:17 AM

garlin said:
I kinda confused by what's happening. Maybe you can run a simple PowerShell script the next time Explorer crashes.

The notification icons for apps pinned to the sys tray, are stored in a registry cache. Normally when an app wants to present itself it changes the IsPromoted setting to 1. And flips it back to 0 when it properly exits.

After your Explorer has crashed, several different things might be true:

1. Explorer has corrupted the icon notification cache. So the running processes you expect to be registered are missing. Restarting your logon session will force all the normal apps to redo the entire process from scratch.

2. Explorer has not corrupted the icon notification cache. But the wrong value for IsPromoted is stored, leading to the systray thinking it doesn't need to display the app icon. In theory a simple script to flip them back would restore what you had before.

The script will report what apps (.EXE's) are known to Explorer, and whether it thinks they should be visible or not. Depending on how well it matches what you've got running may tell us if a fix-script can be made.

ReportOnIcons.ps1

Code:

foreach ($GUID in (Get-ChildItem -Path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings' -Name)) { $ChildPath = "HKCU:\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings\$($GUID)" $App = (Get-ItemProperty -Path $ChildPath -Name ExecutablePath -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).ExecutablePath if ((Get-ItemProperty -Path $ChildPath -Name IsPromoted).IsPromoted) { "$App is visible" } else { "$App is not visible" } }

First of all, thanks for taking the time to respond as I knew you would be one person who seems to know more about the internals of Windows than most of the people on the forums from reading your previous responses.
This problem exists ever since Windows XP and possibly earlier such as Windows 95, 98, ME but in Windows 11, there seems to be a softer crash when the entire taskbar disappears and comes back but the problem does not come back and then there is the more severe crash which is no different than killing and starting the explorer.exe process as the results are the same and the same icons as mentioned in the comment above will be missing unless they are killed and started again. So basically it can be explorer really crashed or when I wrote the original post, it was me actually killing the explorer.exe process and starting it again. Other examples where explorer.exe process will get killed is when installing the Visual C++ All-in-one as it will require the explorer.exe process to be killed to complete the installation, the newer Visual C++ All-in-one's no longer seem to require killing explorer.exe but in any case, I will manually kill and start the explorer.exe process and will post the results of your script in the attached file as it's 4,712 lines. I did try pasting it and basically it says, Oops, the server had encountered a problem and scrolling screenshot using Snagit didn't work. The results keeps complaining about Throttlestop except my Throttlestop icon is not missing.

Almighty1 · Tuesday at 9:19 AM

dacrone said:
yeah anytime i restart explorer, i have to launch the nvidia control panel and uncheck each of the system tray options and recheck them to get the systray icons to show again
View attachment 127951

i've tried to script it before but never had a successful test. just gave up and added the nvidia control panel to my context menu for quick access. only real reason to care about its tray icons is the GPU activity "task manager" type to show all processes using the gpu

this has been an issue for many revisions of windows though...
.https://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/219651-systray-icons-some-programs-dont-re-appear-after-explorer-restart-2.html

Yes, I know it had been an issue with Windows XP and later including 7, 10, 11 and probably 2000 as well. I don't remember if Win9x (95/98/ME) had the problem or not.

garlin · Tuesday at 11:39 AM

That's bizarre, Explorer crashes and fills up the cache with bogus ThrottleStop entries. No wonder you have to reset everything.

Can you open RegEdit, and export "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings"? For privacy reasons, please send it to me as a PM. I want to see if it's something that I can script to remove the bogus entries or not.

Rollback_Jockey · Tuesday at 1:16 PM

I think it would be more productive to diagnose your system rather than pick up debris in it's wake.

I can't remember when my system crashed last and that's how i'd like to keep it.

dacrone · Tuesday at 1:37 PM

Rollback_Jockey said:
I think it would be more productive to diagnose your system rather than pick up debris in it's wake.

I can't remember when my system crashed last and that's how i'd like to keep it.

some of us run tests when compiling code that require a restart... my system has yet to crash... its self-inflicted restarts, but this topic is pertinent to explorer restarts of any fashion...

Almighty1 · Tuesday at 5:28 PM

Rollback_Jockey said:
I think it would be more productive to diagnose your system rather than pick up debris in it's wake.

I can't remember when my system crashed last and that's how i'd like to keep it.

Then you don't really use your system as even installing some software requires can require explorer.exe to be closed in order to continue.

There is nothing to diagnose as it is not some new issue. If you haven't seen it, consider yourself lucky and you may be running a desktop which will not have thermal throttling issues compared to a notebook which will have higher CPU loads and if you use the computer too fast like clicking when it's lagging, it will cause the issue because the CPU is pushing nearly 100% at the time which is more of a problem in Windows 11 24H2 than 23H2. Explorer.exe lagging is not the same thing as a BSOD which is what a real crash is as remember everything still works, just some icons are missing which can be restarted without too much effort. Also, if you looked, your system is more high-end so it's more tolerant and you do have 64GB of RAM which should handle things better than a 32GB system so you have way more resources available which is probably why you may never see the issue in the first place since assuming a system uses 20GB for everything, having 44GB free is better than 12GB free any day of the week since when I use up that 12GB, it will be swapping while you will not swap until you use more than the 44GB free for example.

I've seen this problem since atleast 2002 if not earlier. On XP, many times even the desktop wallpaper will go missing and requires deleting the html before a theme can even be installed.

I mean obviously, a reboot will fix the problem but it will also cause 10 minutes of lost time reloading everything and remember I already know how to fix the problem manually as it's really comparing the processes and seeing if the icon is there.

Besides, if this was not a common problem, would you think @Brink would write a tutorial for it?

Restart Windows Explorer.exe Process in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to restart the explorer.exe process as needed in Windows 11. The explorer.exe process is the user shell for Windows, and is used by such items as the desktop, File Explorer, Start menu, notification area, and taskbar. Restarting the explorer.exe process is to...

www.elevenforum.com

Almighty1 · Tuesday at 6:02 PM

garlin said:
That's bizarre, Explorer crashes and fills up the cache with bogus ThrottleStop entries. No wonder you have to reset everything.

Can you open RegEdit, and export "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings"? For privacy reasons, please send it to me as a PM. I want to see if it's something that I can script to remove the bogus entries or not.

DM sent as requested with the information requested.

garlin · Tuesday at 7:34 PM

You have 595 icon instances of ThrottleStop 9.6 & 5 instances of ThrottleStop 9.7.2.

From the ThrottleStop Version History:

9.7

added per profile adjustment of the turbo power limits, Speed Shift Min Max and PROCHOT offset values.
added core and cache V/F tuning to the FIVR window for unlocked 10th Gen and newer HX and K series CPUs.
fixed the Notification Area icons for improved Windows 11 compatibility.
fixed the power plan selector and increased the number of selections from 8 to 12.
BD PROCHOT is now automatically locked when it is disabled.
changed the DDR memory speed monitoring method.
added an option so the Safe Start feature can be toggled on or off.

1. Temporarily uninstall ThrottleStop, check that you don't have older versions sitting around.

2. Run this PS script to delete the extra entries.

Code:

foreach ($GUID in (Get-ChildItem -Path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings' -Name)) {
    $ChildPath = "HKCU:\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings\$($GUID)"
    $App = (Get-ItemProperty -Path $ChildPath -Name ExecutablePath -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).ExecutablePath
    if ($App -match 'Throttlestop') {
        Remove-Item -Path $ChildPath -Recurse -Force -Verbose
    }
}

Remove-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings' -Name 'UIOrderList' -Force -Verbose

3. Restart Explorer.

Code:

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
start explorer

4. Don't run ThrottleStop for a day or two. Make sure your desktop doesn't freak out.

5. Re-install Throttlestop 9.7 or higher.

nuspieds · Tuesday at 8:21 PM

Almighty1 said:
...I've seen this problem since atleast 2002 if not earlier...

So have I! This issue is definitely not news to me!

Since 24H2, however, I've been incredibly stable. In addition, I used to frequently experience a desktop issue whenever I docked my laptop. Rebooting, of course, solved the issue but what a pain! Thankfully, one day, I stumbled onto @Brink's tutorial and it was a blessing! I ended up creating a Start menu shortcut to do the restart so that when I docked my laptop, if the desktop issue occurred, resolution was just two clicks away! :)

Regardless of whether Explorer.exe would crash on its own or if I forced a restart due to my docking issue, yes, it was common for me to lose one or more system tray icons once the process was restarted. But, @Almighty1, although I cannot 100% remember, I am pretty sure that, in my case, the missing icons did not mean that their associated processes had died. If I had to bet, I would say that they did not die because I could not see myself implementing that Start menu shortcut if I knew that some of my system processes were no longer running.

But in any case, it bothered me so much that there would be missing icons that, eventually, much sooner rather than later, I would restart Windows to get them all back and my mind would be at ease again. :)

Almighty1 · Wednesday at 5:17 AM

garlin said:
You have 595 icon instances of ThrottleStop 9.6 & 5 instances of ThrottleStop 9.7.2.

From the ThrottleStop Version History:

9.7

added per profile adjustment of the turbo power limits, Speed Shift Min Max and PROCHOT offset values.

added core and cache V/F tuning to the FIVR window for unlocked 10th Gen and newer HX and K series CPUs.

fixed the Notification Area icons for improved Windows 11 compatibility.

fixed the power plan selector and increased the number of selections from 8 to 12.

BD PROCHOT is now automatically locked when it is disabled.

changed the DDR memory speed monitoring method.

added an option so the Safe Start feature can be toggled on or off.

1. Temporarily uninstall ThrottleStop, check that you don't have older versions sitting around.

2. Run this PS script to delete the extra entries.

Code:

foreach ($GUID in (Get-ChildItem -Path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings' -Name)) { $ChildPath = "HKCU:\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings\$($GUID)" $App = (Get-ItemProperty -Path $ChildPath -Name ExecutablePath -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).ExecutablePath if ($App -match 'Throttlestop') { Remove-Item -Path $ChildPath -Recurse -Force -Verbose } } Remove-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\NotifyIconSettings' -Name 'UIOrderList' -Force -Verbose

3. Restart Explorer.

Code:

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe start explorer

4. Don't run ThrottleStop for a day or two. Make sure your desktop doesn't freak out.

5. Re-install Throttlestop 9.7 or higher.

Wow, that's interesting. 9.6 came out in 2023, 9.7 was December 2024 and 9.72 came out in January 2025. In Windows Settings, Personalization, Taskbar , the Other System Tray icons section had always show multiple entries for the same products except each entry for the same product can be toggled on while the others can be off as seen here, seems like for GabNetStats, the top one is the one that works but I am trying to figure out what's causing the extra entries for the same icon, duplicates is the better word.

I did use the following method to see if it would fix it but it seems like the multiple entries are still there so like for any given app, I could not tell which one is the one that toggles the actual on/off for that app :
Reset Notification Icons on Taskbar System Tray in Windows 11

I will basically just disable the Task in Task Scheduler for ThrottleStop 9.7.2 as it does not require installation since there is no way to install or uninstall ThrottleStop because just like HWInfo, you basically extract the folder and run the program similar to how a Portable program works as there is no installer. And ofcourse save the .ini file but Throttlestop does not really do anything when Windows Virtualization Based Security is enabled as it has no access to the MSR registers needed to control voltage. The same applies to Intel XTU as neither ThrottleStop and Intel XTU works as it has no access to Windows to control the voltage.

I have disabled and killed the ThrottleStop task and also ran your script. Also, restarted explorer. I will be restarting the machine as well.
There are no other versions of ThrottleStop either because each time a new version comes out, I copy the .ini file into the newly extracted folder and then
delete the previous version so only one folder exists named with the version number like ThrottleStop v9.7.2 in my Downloads folder.

Almighty1 · Wednesday at 5:49 AM

nuspieds said:
So have I! This issue is definitely not news to me!

Since 24H2, however, I've been incredibly stable. In addition, I used to frequently experience a desktop issue whenever I docked my laptop. Rebooting, of course, solved the issue but what a pain! Thankfully, one day, I stumbled onto @Brink's tutorial and it was a blessing! I ended up creating a Start menu shortcut to do the restart so that when I docked my laptop, if the desktop issue occurred, resolution was just two clicks away! :)

Regardless of whether Explorer.exe would crash on its own or if I forced a restart due to my docking issue, yes, it was common for me to lose one or more system tray icons once the process was restarted. But, @Almighty1, although I cannot 100% remember, I am pretty sure that, in my case, the missing icons did not mean that their associated processes had died. If I had to bet, I would say that they did not die because I could not see myself implementing that Start menu shortcut if I knew that some of my system processes were no longer running.

But in any case, it bothered me so much that there would be missing icons that, eventually, much sooner rather than later, I would restart Windows to get them all back and my mind would be at ease again. :)

As I had stated earlier, the processes are still running but you just can't use those programs without killing each of the processes and starting it again to get the missing icon back for that program so for example, I can't open CCleaner because the icon is not there unless I kill and start the CCleaner.exe process as seen in the video capture below:

2025 03 12 02 28 35

Upload and share videos instantly. It's free and simple. No signup required.

sendvid.com

There is really no need for the short cut because all you had to do was use task manager to first kill the Explorer.exe process and then start it again.
You can also do it using the command prompt method too.

With System Informer (formerly Process Hacker), it's even easier as I always have SI opened so all I do is right click on Explorer.exe and then "Restart" which does the kill of Explorer.exe and then starting it again.

garlin · Wednesday at 11:15 AM

Do you use Start All Back or another UI mod?

TairikuOkami · Wednesday at 12:53 PM

Try to apply this tweak

Code:

rem 1 - Launch folder windows in a separate process
reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v "SeparateProcess" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f

rem 0 - All of the components of Windows Explorer run a single process / 1 - All instances of Windows Explorer run in one process and the Desktop and Taskbar run in a separate process
reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer" /v "DesktopProcess" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f

dacrone · Wednesday at 2:31 PM

TairikuOkami said:

Try to apply this tweak

Code:

rem 1 - Launch folder windows in a separate process
reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v "SeparateProcess" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f

rem 0 - All of the components of Windows Explorer run a single process / 1 - All instances of Windows Explorer run in one process and the Desktop and Taskbar run in a separate process
reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer" /v "DesktopProcess" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f

tried with SAB enabled and with SAB disabled. ccleaner icon does not show back up in the tray after an explorer restart but is still running in task manager.

there was a 16bit program named TraySaver for xp that worked for saving the icons upon explorer restarts. i can supply that if the source code would help any in recreating it for 64bit, although i doubt it. from what i've read online over time its

Shell notifies applications that the taskbar has been created. When the taskbar is created, it registers a message with the TaskbarCreated string and then broadcasts this message to all top-level windows. When your taskbar application receives this message, it should assume that any taskbar icons it added have been removed and add them again. This feature generally applies only to services that are already running when the Shell launches.

although most references were when win 10 was in use, so im not sure how accurate they would be with the new taskbar in win 11...

nuspieds · Wednesday at 4:43 PM

Almighty1 said:
...I did use the following method to see if it would fix it but it seems like the multiple entries are still there so like for any given app, I could not tell which one is the one that toggles the actual on/off for that app :
Reset Notification Icons on Taskbar System Tray in Windows 11
...

Really? It didn't fix or cleanup anything? The after picture was the same as the before picture?

If so, that is odd because I had this issue, too: Both duplicate and incorrectly-named entries and that cleanup trick worked like magic for me.

Almighty1 said:
As I had stated earlier, the processes are still running but you just can't use those programs without killing each of the processes and starting it again to get the missing icon back for that program so for example, I can't open CCleaner because the icon is not there unless I kill and start the CCleaner.exe process as seen in the video capture below:

2025 03 12 02 28 35

Upload and share videos instantly. It's free and simple. No signup required.

sendvid.com

There is really no need for the short cut because all you had to do was use task manager to first kill the Explorer.exe process and then start it again.
You can also do it using the command prompt method too...

Yep, okay, so I was right about the processes still running and, yes, you are correct in that it doesn't help if you are unable to click on an icon to perform a given task.

My shortcut is simply for a time-saver: Two clicks and it's done. :) Also, when my docking issue was really bad such that it happened practically every time I docked, I had setup a task to run the script each time I docked. Eventually, the situation improved to where the occurrence was rare, so I switched to manual and now, knock on wood, I haven't needed it in ages.

When Windows Explorer (Explorer.exe) crashes or restarted, is there a script to restore the missing system tray icons?

Well-known member

My Computer

Administrator

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

Attachments

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

9.7​

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

9.7​

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Microsoft 365 Basic

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Similar threads

9.7

9.7