I was searching online and actually found this randomly.
Long story short, a combination of PowerShell (script provided) and GPO.
http://4sysops.com/archives/forcing-notification-area-icons-to-always-show-in-windows-7-or-windows-8/
Long story, create a PowerShell script containing the following:
param(
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true,HelpMessage='The name of the program')][string]$ProgramName,
[Parameter(Mandatory=$true,HelpMessage='The setting (2 = show icon and notifications 1 = hide icon and notifications, 0 = only show notifications')]
[ValidateScript({if ($_ -lt 0 -or $_ -gt 2) { throw 'Invalid setting' } return $true})]
[Int16]$Setting
)
$encText = New-Object System.Text.UTF8Encoding
[byte[]] $bytRegKey = @()
$strRegKey = ""
$bytRegKey = $(Get-ItemProperty $(Get-Item 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify').PSPath).IconStreams
for($x=0; $x -le $bytRegKey.Count; $x++)
{
$tempString = [Convert]::ToString($bytRegKey[$x], 16)
switch($tempString.Length)
{
0 {$strRegKey += "00"}
1 {$strRegKey += "0" + $tempString}
2 {$strRegKey += $tempString}
}
}
[byte[]] $bytTempAppPath = @()
$bytTempAppPath = $encText.GetBytes($ProgramName)
[byte[]] $bytAppPath = @()
$strAppPath = ""
Function Rot13($byteToRot)
{
if($byteToRot -gt 64 -and $byteToRot -lt 91)
{
$bytRot = $($($byteToRot - 64 + 13) % 26 + 64)
return $bytRot
}
elseif($byteToRot -gt 96 -and $byteToRot -lt 123)
{
$bytRot = $($($byteToRot - 96 + 13) % 26 + 96)
return $bytRot
}
else
{
return $byteToRot
}
}
for($x = 0; $x -lt $bytTempAppPath.Count * 2; $x++)
{
If($x % 2 -eq 0)
{
$curbyte = $bytTempAppPath[$([Int]($x / 2))]
$bytAppPath += Rot13($curbyte)
}
Else
{
$bytAppPath += 0
}
}
for($x=0; $x -lt $bytAppPath.Count; $x++)
{
$tempString = [Convert]::ToString($bytAppPath[$x], 16)
switch($tempString.Length)
{
0 {$strAppPath += "00"}
1 {$strAppPath += "0" + $tempString}
2 {$strAppPath += $tempString}
}
}
if(-not $strRegKey.Contains($strAppPath))
{
Write-Host Program not found. Programs are case sensitive.
break
}
[byte[]] $header = @()
$items = @{}
for($x=0; $x -lt 20; $x++)
{
$header += $bytRegKey[$x]
}
for($x=0; $x -lt $(($bytRegKey.Count-20)/1640); $x++)
{
[byte[]] $item=@()
$startingByte = 20 + ($x*1640)
$item += $bytRegKey[$($startingByte)..$($startingByte+1639)]
$items.Add($startingByte.ToString(), $item)
}
foreach($key in $items.Keys)
{
$item = $items[$key]
$strItem = ""
$tempString = ""
for($x=0; $x -le $item.Count; $x++)
{
$tempString = [Convert]::ToString($item[$x], 16)
switch($tempString.Length)
{
0 {$strItem += "00"}
1 {$strItem += "0" + $tempString}
2 {$strItem += $tempString}
}
}
if($strItem.Contains($strAppPath))
{
Write-Host Item Found with $ProgramName in item starting with byte $key
$bytRegKey[$([Convert]::ToInt32($key)+528)] = $setting
Set-ItemProperty $($(Get-Item 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify').PSPath) -name IconStreams -value $bytRegKey
}
}
Save it as a ps1 file using the name of your choice.
Open up the Group Policy Management MMC. Select your chosen Group Policy Object, right click and select Edit. In the editor, navigate to User Configuration > Windows Settings > Scripts > Logon and click "Display Properties". Go to the PowerShell tab and click View Files.
Copy the script you just made into the Explorer window that just opened and then close out of the window.
In the login script properties window, add a new PowerShell script, in the script name, enter the name of the script you used (example: NotifyIcon.ps1), and then in the parameters, enter the program name (case sensitive!) followed by the setting to use:
0 = only show notifications
1 = hide icon and notifications
2 = show icon and notifications <--- The one you need
Example, if you need the RealVNC server to always appear, you would enter:
winvnc4.exe 2
as the paramenters
You can find out the name of the executable in a couple different ways, such as opening a Run dialogue box and typing msconfig and looking at the startup programs, manually navigating to the installation directory C:\Program Files\{your program}, or trying to match the desired program by looking at the running processes in Task Manager. 9 times out of 10 this will result in success.
In order for this to work, the user must have previously run the application, and then properly logged out, so that explorer.exe gets a chance to write the updated notification area history to the Registry. On a subsequent login, the script should successfully locate the program in the history, and update its setting to always show.
You can also try running the script manually from a PowerShell prompt to debug, but you MUST kill explorer.exe (‘taskkill /f /im explorer.exe’) before running it, otherwise explorer won’t see your update, and will overwrite it when it does quit.
I take no credit for this process. I didn't write it, I just found it. Credit for the script goes to Micah Rowland. Credit for the GPO process goes to Geoff Kendal
Can't you show the icon/message by some other mechanism than in the system tray? – jalf – 2011-08-02T15:52:35.143