Explorer is missing half tray icons in XP

Question

lately and with no explanation half of the tray icons disappear every time I start up XP SP3. I use Process Explorer (procexp.exe) to look for the missing processes and they still there. When i kill and restart explorer.exe, the tray is complete again. I don't know how to diagnostic or repair the problem. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Many times this can occur when you log into your user account before Windows XP has fully loaded all its start-up processes. I tend to wait for my hard drive light to stop blinking before I log in, and that has alleviated the issue for me.