Topic: force windows to reload all system tray icons

[devnullius]

This has been bugging me since it was introduced in Windows 95 pre-release SC1 or whatever it was ;p

When explorer crashes, Windows will not crash any longer (mostly starting with Aero (Vista). That is good. It usually automatically restarts explorer.exe and you can work on as nothing happened.

Sadly, there is 1 big big big disadvantage: the crashing explorer.exe takes with it the active systray icons (you know, that stuff usually ignored and hidden by many users, to be found close to your time/date clock in the Task-bar?).

On my currently maxed-out PC with all PoS cryptocurrency wallets, this is a big pain in my buttoms Why? I can't access my wallets! Or other programs for that matter, even Avast messes up once in a blue moon.

I thought this could not be fixed: it's not windows that takes care of them icons, it's the programs themselves... And almost none keep checking if their icon is still displayed.

To my surprise, today I found a solution...

FROM: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1114887/can-i-re-gain-a-systray-icon-of-a-running-app-that-has-gone-missing

I've written a project that sends a TaskbarCreated message to all of the top-level windows in the system. If they've registered a tray icon, that should cause them to restore the icon after explorer has crashed.

I've released the source under the MIT license, and provided a link to the compiled console application  (with Lazarus) in the readme file.

There are certainly a few refinements that could be made, like not sending the message if the icon is known to be in the tray already, but for now this app causes the icons that I know go missing on an Explorer crash to reappear.

answered Mar 21 '13 at 18:41

ringmaster
977814

Be warned: it's *not*  perfect: I end up with 5 icons that are blank, filled in but non-responding. Still, others do re-appear as by magic and I'm pinning this neat little tool

I added it to my default checkdisk.zip collection... Discussed here: http://scforum.info/index.php?topic=8202.0

Peace!

Devvie

[Samker]

Useful, no doubt.

[A41202813GMAIL]

Wonderful Utility.

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Sequence Of Tasks ( All Within The Task Manager - CTRL-ALT-DEL ):

A - Choose Option **End Process** EXPLORER.EXE ( On Purpose This Time ) - Careful, Do Not Choose Option **End Process Tree**,

B - Run This Utility,

C - Run EXPLORER.EXE, Again.

Everything Should Be Back To Normal.

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It Works With XP, Too.

Thank You.

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[myphonecarduk]

I don't know that will work or not, But I think it would be great if it works as described.