Windows system taskbar icons disappeared

Here is what they used to look like.

Now, the first five icons are missing -- the spaces are there, but no icons. Right-clicking the spaces has no response, where before this would bring up a context menu for each associated application.

What's gone wrong? How can I get back my icons?

1 Answer

The following solution worked exactly as specified on this solution site:Instructions for resetting system taskbar icons...

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Reproduced below for permanence:

1. Go to Start > Run (or Windows-key + R), type in regedit and hit OK.

2. Navigate to the key:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\LocalSettings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify

3. Delete the values IconStreams and PastIconsStream.
4. Open up the Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc), go to the Processes tab, select explorer.exe and click End Process.
5. Open the Applications tab and click New Task at the bottom-right of the window.
6. In the message box that pops up type in explorer.exe and hit OK.
7. Explorer.exe will reload, and the missing icons should now be back in the system-tray where they belong.

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