How can I move items from the PAST ITEMS list to CURRENT ITEMS? I am missing
the sheild to notify of "updates" and " safe to remove hardware" . Also the
Icons have changed in Past Items list to Generic folder icon?

To move items to and from Past/Current just right-click
somewhere on the "Notification Area" and select
"Customize Notifications".

To clean up the old entries, use this utility:

Past Icons Flusher
http://raproducts.org/

Can you beleive the Notification mess is still there in Vista!


ju.c


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To whom it may concern,

It is usually normal for those two particular icons to be in the Past Items
list when not needed. If you have your Automatic Updates set to, "Notify me
but don't automatically download or install them", then, every time you
connect to the internet, the Windows update site will be contacted to check
for any new updates your computer needs, and if there are, the shield will
appear and a balloon will inform you updates are ready. The hardware removal
icon usually appears when removable hardware is attached. The appearance of
"Generic" folder icons may be a separate problem with corrupt icon cache.

[Begin SysTray faqtoid:]

First, a reminder that you need to make detailed records of any changes you
make to your Computer, should the need arise to change anything back.

Some times, after restarting the computer, not all of the icons appear in
the Notification Area, (SysTray or TrayNotify,) for various reasons, usually
due to startup timing problems when too many processes are active during the
time the Tray gets populated, such as when you restart after installing new
software or Windows updates, and extra things are happening during startup.
Sometimes re-starting your computer 2 more times cures temporary glitches.
The Volume Control speaker icon is usually one of the first to get skipped.
This is believed to be caused by a timing defect in the Windows function
Shell_NotifyIcon in shell32.dll, which has a timeout fixed at 4 seconds.
Combined with an unfavorable Windows API message, this causes the problem,
which affects heavily loaded computers that do not have ultra-fast hard
disks. Sometimes the phenomenon of the missing SysTray icons seems to be
triggered by the UPnP User Interface. BTW, (By The Way,) the UPnP is
different than ordinary PnP, Plug-n-Play.

The work around for the missing SRH (Safely Remove Hardware) icon, is to
make a shortcut to the hardware removal dialog, which can be used to stop
the device so it can be safely removed, and a usual side effect of accessing
the dialog is for the icon to appear in the Tray. (If you have any devices
connected.) Right click your desktop, click New, click Shortcut. Type or
paste this into the location box:
RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll
[There is a space after "exe" and before "hot".]
click Next, and type or paste this into the name box:
Safely Remove Hardware
Click Finish. If you like, you can right click the new shortcut, click
Change Icon, and in the Look for Icons box, type or paste:
%SystemRoot%\system32\hotplug.dll
and click OK, and select the SRH icon for your shortcut, click OK, OK.

To put that shortcut on your Start Menu, left click and drag the shortcut,
hold it over the Start button for a second until the menu appears, point to
(All) Programs, then Accessories, then position it where want it by looking
at the horizontal lines that appear between items, and then drop it (release
the mouse button) to move it there, or hold your CTRL key as you release
your mouse button to copy it. A +plus symbol will appear on the pointer when
you copy. (P.S. to cancel a drag in progress, press ESC key. :)
[Note: Your StartMenu>Properties>Customize needs to have Dragging and
dropping "enabled" for adding shortcuts to the Start Menu.]
- - -

The Safely Remove Hardware icon should only appear for devices that are
configured for write back cacheing, (aka. "Optimized for speed".) The XP
default for removeable media devices is write through cacheing, (aka.
"Optimized for fast removal",) which does not require stopping the device
before removal, (and therefore is not offered, but can be changed and is, by
some OEMs.) When set to fast removal, no SRH icon is needed.

Right click My Computer, click Properties, click Hardware tab, click Device
Manager, find removable drive/device, right click, click Properties, click
Policies, and select suitable settings. You can access Properties in the
Safely Remove Hardware dialog window too.
- - -

Other things that may restore SysTray icons and functions:

Re-register SysTray-Object with shell service
Click Start, click Run, then type or paste:
regsvr32 stobject.dll
and click OK
A message should appear saying that stobject.dll registered.
- - -

For missing Volume Control Icon, you can try this: Go to My Network Places,
and click on "Hide icons for networked UPnP devices", and restart your
computer. Or, changing the UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) service
configuration sometimes works, for both Windows XP and Vista.
Click Start, click Run, then type or paste:
services.msc
and click OK
In the Services window, stop and then disable "UPnP Device Host" and "SSPD
Discovery" services. To stop a service, double click it and click the Stop
button, and then disable it by choosing "Disabled" in the Startup type box.
(Remember to take notes, should you need to use UPnP someday. :)
- - -

Another way that sometimes works to restore icons is to re-start Explorer.
Click Start, click Run, then type or paste:
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
and click OK
then type or paste:
explorer.exe
and click OK, to restart the desktop and taskbar.
Note: You can do the same thing by right clicking the tray Clock, choose
Task Manager, and in Processes, select "explorer.exe", and click End
Process, (twice?). Then click File, click "New Task (Run...)", type
"explorer.exe" (without quotes) and press Enter key. Note the word "Run" in
that option, which is the same as the Start>Run thingy. (A handy thing to
remember if your Start Menu quits working!) Other ways to open Task Manager:
press Alt+Ctrl+Del key combo, or press Ctrl+Shift+ESC key combo.
IMPORTANT: Closing Explorer also closes open folders, etc.

If you have repeating problems that require you to restart Explorer, then
make a simple Batch file on your desktop. Right click desktop, click New,
click Text Document, press Enter twice to open, and type or paste these
three lines:
@echo off
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
explorer.exe

then FileSave and exit, and rename the file "Reset_Explorer.bat".
(Close open applications, etc., before testing it.)
- - -
Windows System Tray Icons [Some basic things]
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310578/
Systray.exe is a tool for system taskbar notifications. The taskbar provides
a location for programs and hardware devices to display icons.
The following icons provided by Systray.exe may be displayed on the taskbar:
• Battery Meter
• PC Card Status
• Volume Control
• Quickres
• Task Scheduler
Other parts of the system may provide additional taskbar icons, for example:
• Windows Explorer provides the printer status icon
• Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook provides the mail status icon
• The Accessibility status indicator program (Accstat.exe) displays
      keyboard accessibility icons
• Microsoft Fax adds the Fax Rendering and Fax Status icons
- - -

A lengthy discussion of missing SysTray icons is found here:
http://winhlp.com/node/16
[Reading time: about 3 hours]
- - -
How to back up and restore the registry in Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/
- - -
Icons changed to generic folder icons - TrayNotify tweak
[Although a Vista article, this method flushes XP icons too:]
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945011

1. Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
   [** You should backup the Registry before making changes. **]
2. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation,
    type the password, or click Allow. Locate and then click the
    following registry subkey:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
\Software
  \Classes
   \LocalSettings
    \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:
  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.
[Remember to re-start your computer twice to be sure changes stick.]
- - -
To make a clickable registry (*.reg) file to do the above Registry changes,
right click desktop, click New, click Text Document, press Enter twice to
open, and type or paste these five lines:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify]
"PastIconsStream"=-
"IconStreams"=-

[The 2nd line, after version, is a blank line.]
[The part above between square brackets is one line without spaces.]
[The hyphen "-" after equals "=" means delete data for that value.]
Next FileSave and exit, and rename the file "TrayNotifyReset.reg". Right
click, and click Merge, and click Yes to delete those two sub keys' data.
Restart Explorer according to previous instructions, and restart your
computer to complete the process of rebuilding tray icons that are still
needed.
- - -
[:end SysTray faqtoid]

(Triple-Click here to: Have a nice day! :)
--Richard

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