Why does my Tray Icon's Behavior occasionally reset Windows 7?

I'm fine with having most of my tray icons hidden, however I want the Outlook Notification envelop to show at all times when I have new messages. Its important for me to know when I have unread emails, as I often miss seeing them come in and they are often important.

I'll change the settings to Show Icon and Notifications, however it randomly seems to reset itself every few days or weeks back to Only Show Notifications

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For example, it was working fine this morning, appearing when I had an unread message in my Inbox, and then it suddenly stopped working again. I only noticed it because I went to send an email and realized I had unread messages. I've only been here a few hours, so haven't signed off, locked my machine, rebooted it, or restarted Outlook.

Here's a picture of how my Task Bar usually looks. I don't like the Windows 7 big icons, and prefer two rows of items since I usually have multiple things open at once. I'm not sure if that setup has anything to do with why my Tray Icon behavior keeps getting reset or not.

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Why is my Tray Icon behavior getting reset, and how can I stop it from happening?

Edit

I noticed that I got both Windows Security Updates, and Microsoft Office updates on this day. I am beginning to believe that this is a bug in either Windows 7 or Office which resets the default tray behavior when an update occurs. That would explain the seemingly random times that the behavior gets reset.

It should also be noted that when the envelop disappears, it still shows up in my tray icons, however the icon is hidden and I need to click the drop-down arrow to see it. This makes me think it's the Windows Updates causing the problem. Unfortunately, I didn't write down the days this has happened on in the past to see if it relates to other Windows or Office updates to be sure.

Rachel

Posted 2012-01-12T16:24:34.960

Reputation: 395

I have exactly the same problem with Keepass (http://keepass.info) on windows 7. It's hard to know if it's the programs fault or windows fault

– Nat – 2015-04-24T04:30:41.603

Check out the event viewer, in windows logs applications, clear it, then next time it happens, check out what it says there, around the same time. – Psycogeek – 2012-01-14T16:31:20.010

The problem is solved by re-installing Windows 7. – Alex G – 2012-10-02T11:07:09.927

As far as I can tell, the icon behavior is reset to "Only show notifications" anytime a program is updated. I have to keep setting the behavior back to "Show icon and notifications" anytime a program like Skype or PortableApps automatically updates itself. – rob – 2014-02-11T22:48:16.457

1Do you use CCleaner by any chance? – cutrightjm – 2014-02-22T15:33:58.320

@ekaj Yes I think I did. Does that affect it? – Rachel – 2014-02-22T15:52:31.490

Have you tried setting the main Outlook tray icon (not the new mail notification) to always show in the tray? I'm wondering if perhaps whatever method Windows uses to track which icons are shown and which are hidden is failing for the new mail notification due to it not being a "real" icon - it is just an additional icon under the parent Outlook icon. – iridris – 2012-01-20T21:50:52.667

1There's an option under Advanced, "Tray Notifications Cache", that will reset the habits of some of the icons in your notification area after a reboot. – cutrightjm – 2014-02-22T22:41:47.843

Answers

You might be interested in this Microsoft support article, "FIX: The Taskbar is reset to the default settings when you use the "Automatically Log On" feature in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2" (KB979155).

It seems that the notification area settings in the registry are overwritten due to a race condition between explorer.exe and taskhost.exe.

ctype.h

Posted 2012-01-12T16:24:34.960

Reputation: 827

Interesting, however I don't think that is my problem. My TaskBar customizations have never been reset, and the problem occurs while I'm sitting and working at my computer, not after I login. – Rachel – 2012-01-12T17:35:39.213

This seems interesting: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13880_3-9956695-68.html.

– ctype.h – 2012-01-12T17:58:55.993

That article is about Tray Icons which don't appear at all, which isn't the problem I'm having. – Rachel – 2012-01-12T19:51:35.963

It seemed like that might be the issue, but I guess not. I wonder where the settings for individual icons are stored in the registry so that we can just run a *.reg to fix the settings. – ctype.h – 2012-01-12T20:13:22.230

The icon appears fine if I click the arrow by the clock and expand the list of all tray icons, however I want Windows to show that icon all the time. That can be accomplished by changing it's behavior to Show Icon and Notifications, but after a few days or weeks it will revert to its old behavior and I have to change the drop down again. It's very annoying and has caused me to miss at least one important email because I didn't think I had any new messages and didn't check my Outlook for a few hours. – Rachel – 2012-01-12T20:30:34.387

These settings are probably stored in the registry like other settings. I supspect that a bug in the OS causes these registry keys are overwritten when Windows decides to update which programs are used most frequently. Figuring out where these keys are would probably allow you to write a login script to fix them. However, you would have to edit the script every time you want to change a setting, but at least you would have more control over its behavior. – ctype.h – 2012-01-13T02:34:33.773

Hrrrm I'm beginning to think you're right about it being a bug in the OS which is overwritting some registry key when something updates. That would explain the seemingly random times when it gets reset. I don't suppose you know where this registry key would be? :) – Rachel – 2012-01-16T15:19:41.643

In Outlook 2007 and 2010, the envelope will show for messages that are delivered to the default Inbox for each account. When a message is caught by the Junk E-mail filter or moved by a rule, the envelope icon is not shown. The icon is also not shown for additional mailboxes which have been configured from a single Exchange account.

Ensure also that in Outlook 2010 that you have chosen File-> Options-> section Mail-> option group: Message arrival-> option: Show an envelope icon in the taskbar.

_(source)

If your case is not one of the above, then read this from New mail envelope and Windows 7 :

If you are using Outlook 2010, then the new mail envelope is not being displayed in the Notification Area (also knows as the Systray) but on the Outlook Taskbar icon instead.

When you are using Outlook 2010 on Windows 7, then the new mail envelope will no longer be displayed in the Notification Area. Instead, the icon of Outlook on the Taskbar will actually change to inform you about a new message. Unfortunately, when you’ve set your Taskbar in Windows 7 to use small icons, you will not get an envelope notification at all. In that case you could consider reconfiguring the New Mail Desktop Alert to be displayed as a permanent notification.

It may seem that your taskbar preferences conflict with the way Microsoft wants you to use Outlook, so you may have to adapt to it, or use another mail client.

harrymc

Posted 2012-01-12T16:24:34.960

Reputation: 306 093

That doesn't seem to be my issue since the New Mail Alert shows just fine after I customize my tray behavior for that item. My problem is the behavior seems to reset at random, without telling me, so I end up missing important emails because I don't notice them come in and don't think I have any. – Rachel – 2012-01-16T15:17:00.087

Have you considered the possibility that it is Outlook itself that is resetting your preferences to what it considers are the right values? – harrymc – 2012-01-16T15:19:41.057

Since the setting that is getting reset is a Windows setting, and not an Outlook setting, I am beginning to think it is a bug in the Windows OS which resets the default display behavior of system tray icons when something updates. I'm not sure if it would be Windows Updates, Outlook Updates, or even the Frequently Used Programs list, however that would explain the seemingly random times it gets reset. – Rachel – 2012-01-16T15:23:56.003

I believe more in Outlook as the culprit. However, you could maybe trace this happening. The registry key being changed is maybe somewhere inside HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer, and Process Monitor can trace it by specifying a filter with "Event Class" of "Registry" and "Path" as the above registry key. Maybe also "Category" as "Write". Test this while changing it yourself to "Show Icon and Notifications".

– harrymc – 2012-01-16T15:41:07.493

Hrrm cool tool. The registry path you provided doesn't seem to get updated at all, however there are a whole bunch of other registry keys that get updated. They're mostly in HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\ and HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist\. If it doesn't kill my machine, perhaps I'll try and leave this running next time an update occurs and see if it touches any of those keys. – Rachel – 2012-01-16T16:01:46.630

This article suggests HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify. – harrymc – 2012-01-16T16:06:08.203

Registry keys are identical before and after the change. Also, exporting the keys, making the change, and re-importing the old values into the registry does not make a difference. – Rachel – 2012-01-16T16:16:20.823

I faced the same problem and apparently there's no trick to show the Outlook tray icon while the rest of icons remain hidden but I heard that those applications that we frequently use are always shown on the bar, so maybe since you use Outlook so often you might give it a couple of days for the system to "get use to it" and start to show the tray icon most of the time.

"I don't like the Windows 7 big icons, and prefer two rows of items since I usually have multiple things open at once" I totally agree with this.

Jorge

Posted 2012-01-12T16:24:34.960

Reputation: 191

I don't think that will work because there are other programs I use frequently (such as EditPad, which is on my Quick Launch) and I've never seen it show up automatically in my Tray Icons. In fact, no icons ever show there except my outlook envelope (when it feels like it), which is how I prefer it – Rachel – 2012-01-12T16:55:19.920