How To Enable/Disable System Tray Icon On Windows : Focusing On Registry

Yesterday one of my friends call me because the volume icon in the system tray of his PC has been disabled without any warning. So I have checked his PC. And I saw that everything is fine with the sound drive/Hartford installation. So I asked him what he have installed previously. And he said that he has installed a third party volume software and a craving for some time he found it useless. So he had uninstalled it and just after uninstallation, the volume icon has certainly been gone! I checked his registry for error and it seemed like everything okay to me. So I have decided to give the search for a solution, and after reading some softwares and tricks, I have decided to go through manual registry editing. And I had fixed this problem within a few minutes. I think I got the best solution for this problem. Without using any third party software to fix this (and create another problem) – it's better to do it manually. For those who don't have any idea about the registry editing, I have provided step-by-step, so you can do it easily.

Pre-Procedure

1st open Run from the Start menu.

Then write regedit and click OK (Or hit Enter)

Allow User Account Control if it prompts.

It will open the Registry Editor Menu. Then navigate to the following path from the left side panel in Registry Editor.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

There’s you can see only one key and it’s named (Default) on the image above. If any of the system icon is disabled, you will see the Keys here.

Disabling System Icon(s)

In the right pane of Explorer, right click on a empty area and click on New and DWORD (32-bit) Value.

• To Disable the Clock Icon - Type HideClock and press Enter.
• To Disable the Volume Icon - Type HideSCAVolume and press Enter.
• To Disable the Network Icon - Type HideSCANetwork and press Enter.
• To Disable the Power (battery) Icon - Type HideSCABattery and press Enter.

Now right click on each keys you have added and click on Modify.

Type 1 (Default value is 0) and click on OK. (See screenshot below) Repeat this steps for all keys you have added.

Log Off/Restart your PC.

Enabling System Icon(s)

• To Enable the Clock Icon - Right click on HideClock and click on Delete.
• To Enable the Volume Icon - Right click on HideSCAVolume and click on Delete.
• To Enable the Network Icon - Right click on HideSCANetwork and click on Delete.
• To Enable the Power (battery) Icon - Right click on HideSCABattery and click on Delete.

From the Left Panel of Registry Editor, navigate to the following path.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

In the right pane, check for the “HideClock………etc.” values and if they are here too – delete them as previously you did.

Now Close the Registry Editor and Restart your PC.