Computer help forum: Sound icon missing in Vista

the run command in the start menu is left out by default. you can add it to your start menu but it is not needed as you can do all your run commands from the start search box just as Grif has mentioned below.

I have never had this problem until I placed one of my utilities programs to auto clean my registry. Once I took it off of the auto clean and went back to manuel picking what to delete, I don't have this problem anymore.

i've been trying to figure out how to fix this problem for almost a week!

worked like a charm.

i am going to mention that it gives you a warning about changing and deleting things and asks you if you're sure. which made me apprehensive and i had to search about it.

you should click yes on the warning. dont worry.

and if you cant get explorer.exe to restart, logging out of your user on your computer and loggin back in works the same as an explorer.exe restart in task manager.

thank you so much again for this quick fix!
its very important because i have a sony vaio and i do not have an external volume control button.

-happy and volume controlled
blinkingstarlet

this is the best solution...

Hi Joseph, before I go deleting threads out of the registry, I justed want to be sure this also works with Vista/Home Premium SP2 64-bit operating system?

Thank you,

Richard

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Easy sollution
by josephc3 - 10/7/07 9:15 AM In reply to: Sound icon missing in Vista by novelidea
I have vista home premium and i discovered the same problem a while back and have just recived it again.

this problem is easy to solve and i discovered the solution after a few minuites of searching on the internet.

The solution is simple,
1. click start > run and type regedit to open the registry editor.
2. Search for "iconstreams"
3. Delete all keys with the name "iconstreams" and "pasticonstreams" until "iconstreams" cannot be found in the registry
4. Restart Vista
5. if the icon is not there at startup, right click the taskbar, click properties then notification area and enable the icon like normal.

i found this solution at:
http://antemeridiem.wordpress.com/2007/07/13/missing-system-icons-in-windows-vista/

I hope this helps.
Joseph Campbell

I put my faith in your advice, followed the steps and my volume control is back and functioning properly. I don't know why it worked but as I said it was a leap of faith.

Thank you very much. Now I can be the hit of the "party trick" circuit should somehow complain about their volume control being suddenly gone.

Thanks again for making my day.

Same thing is happening to me. I'm running a Compaq presario C700 (with vista home premium of course)and I just noticed this problem today. I had no volume, no sound icon, and I couldn't find a way to fix it. The strange thing is that I've had this thing for a few months and it was fine till now. And I already tried Google... which is how I got here.

this is a common vista problem when the explorer.exe buggers up

click, control alt and delete and start the task manager,
kill the explorer.exe task and click start a new task
type explorer.exe and press enter

that's it

vista corrupts to the vista basic compatibility mode for some programs (which is bs as there's never a real reason to do so)

occasionally it's go into a half and half state and it wont tell you,
it will appear as aero but some things go wonky - like missing volume controls or explorer crashes

(still not as bad as xp explorer corruptions ^^)

Of all the responses, this was the quickest and worked instantly for this issue. It also brought back my network and battery icons. Thanks.

Thanks so much for these simple directions. This has been driving me mad, and now they're back. I just registered here esp to say Thanks!

You may want to read this site for somewhat greater detail on this solution plus the site offers a method to prevent the icon from disappearing in the future. I have used the solution to get the icon back several times in the past but have just now found how to keep the icon from disappearing (hope it works). Happy New Year
http://techpaul.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/fix-missing-volume-control/

I had the same issue with my windows vista basic that was loaded onto my compaq cq60, I fixed the problem by Right clicking on the taskbar near the clock, then clicked the "Lock Taskbar" option (to remove the tick) then Right clicked the Taskbar again and selected "Properties" and then Clicked the "Volume" box (as before it was grey and not selectable)! Then I clicked "Apply" and then Locked the "Taskbar"!!
What do you know instant fix to this problem and absolutely "NO NEED TO EDIT REGISTRY KEYS" to me this would be a silly thing to do especialy for those with a more novice position with operating systems, editing registry could fataly affect your pc/laptops operating system rendering it totaly useless without a re-install of windows!
VISTA RULES THROW XP AWAY! =)

I had the same problem today (that's how I found this forum :-)), it happened after installing service pack 2...
My solution: Right Click on Taskbar -> Properties -> Notification Area -> Apply Default Settings and then restart your computer...

I recently had this issue on Vista Home. I found that an easy workaround was to run sndvol.exe (from start/run). This also seemed to have the side effect of restoring the icon in the taskbar.

Hope that works for others...

Although your intentions were good, including a link to an unknown downloadable .reg file from an unknown personal storage location isn't safe for the members and isn't condoned on these forums. A similar .reg fix on a reputable download site should be allowed.

Hope this helps.

Grif