Icon flashes on and off on system tray

Question

Every hour or so, some icon is added to my Windows XP (SP3) System Tray, for a second or less then disappears. Not only is this an irritating distraction, I would like to ensure it is not malware, but it starts, then disappears too quickly for me to see what it is.

Is there any tool to monitor to track the history of the System Tray or notify of an event, or (probably a SO question) a .NET library or COM interop I can hook into to write one?

Answer 1

Take a look at Process Monitor from Sysinternals. When the icon appears, check the time. You can then stop the programs logging and look at the latest activity in great detail:

Also check your scheduled tasks. You may have some obscure process in there running on a set interval.