Summary: The volume indicator allows you to control the sound output by your computer. It can disappear, and the option to enable it has moved around a little.
My sound icon has disappeared. How can I find where to make it show back up on my tray at the bottom of my computer screen?
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Not to be confused with an on-screen volume indicator, what we're discussing here is a small icon that sits in the system tray, typically on the right hand side of the screen from which you can adjust the sound output volume.
The good news is that it's typically a simple system setting to display it or not.
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First let's identify the little guy:
The sound icon in Windows XP
The sound icon in Windows Vista
The sound icon in Windows 7
As you can see, it's a small speaker icon. Click on it and you typically get the global volume control, right-click on it and you'll get additional options.
If it's there, that is.
And as it turns out, the option to display it has taken a little trip, moving to three different places in three different versions of Windows: XP, Vista and Windows 7.
Windows XP
In Control Panel, open the Sounds and Audio Devices applet and click on the Volume tab.
Check, or uncheck, the Place volume icon in the taskbar option as you like.
Windows Vista
Right click on the task bar, and click on Properties, then click on the Notification Area tab:
Windows 7
Right click on the clock and click on Properties:
Regardless of where it ran off to, the option's there in all three versions of Windows, so you can elect to show the sound icon, or not, as you wish.
Related:
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How do I make system tray icons go away permanently? Many applications like to add an icon to the system tray or notification area. Unfortunately, controlling what goes there isn't as easy as we'd like it to be.
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How do I get rid of unused network icons in my taskbar notification area? The area of you Windows taskbar near the clock can have an icon for every network connection. We'll look at how to get only those you care about.
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Safely Remove Hardware: where did the icon go? How do I safely remove hardware without it? The "Safely Remove Hardware" icon can occasionally disappear. It turns out there's a simple workaround to safely remove hardware anyway.
Article C3894 - October 17, 2009
Marty: Strangely enough all my icons, EXEPT VOLUME, are marked "hide when inactive" but I have indicated "always show" for the volume icon. Strange eh?
Posted by: Lee Hatch at October 20, 2009 9:48 AMI prefer to have the 3 icons for clock, power, network, and volume always on display in my system tray, and my settings are permanently set for this. Hide Inactive Icons is unchecked. However, on my Vista Home Premium based laptop, I have noticed that whenever I do anything that requires me to reboot, the network and volume icons always disappear. Retrieving them is impossible as the settings then show the checkboxes greyed out even though the options are both still checked. The only way to get the icons back is to shut down the machine completely, then power it up again. Even then, this does not always get both of the icons back every time. Very annoying. Id' love to know if there is a solution.
Posted by: PooterMan at October 20, 2009 12:38 PMThe same thing happened to my Volume Icon in the Task bar. The way I got it back is I went to the Control Panel > Sounds and Auto Devices, The "Place volume control Icon" was checked, I unchecked it then cleared the page and Control Panel, Then went back and checked "Place volume control Icon in Task Bar" It is back in the task bar now.
Posted by: Carl at October 20, 2009 3:09 PMThe problem with the Volume Control Icon I mentioned above occured after the Windows (MSN) October Updates were installed.
Posted by: Carl at October 20, 2009 3:15 PMWhen I click on Volume control I get an error message saying "Windows cannot display Volume Control. Volume Control has not been installed. Use add or remove programs"
Posted by: Louise Ivey at October 20, 2009 3:58 PMThis happened about a month ago. I understand that the SndVol32.exe is missing, but what can I do to get it back?
Help! My volume icon has also disappeared from task-bar...tried everything here. Cant customize, cant check greyed- out volume box. Have Vista
Posted by: steve at October 21, 2009 9:45 AMSteve -- I hate to say it but did you try a system restore since that is the only thing that would work for me?
Posted by: Karl at October 21, 2009 11:47 AMI have this same problem. I found a temporary easy solution.
Posted by: Allison at November 9, 2009 10:19 AMOpen your task manager (ctrl+alt+delete)
Under the processes tab, click on explorer.exe then end process
Go to File>New Task and type systray.exe
Go to File again>New Task and type explorer.exe
Your notification icons should be back.
Windows Vista
Right click on the task bar, and click on Properties, then click on the Notification Area tab
To the directions that was given to us, what if our volume box is greyed and cant be clicked on? then what do I do?
Posted by: Katie at November 17, 2009 3:30 PMRe: I understand that the SndVol32.exe is missing, but what can I do to get it back?
In XP, SndVol32.exe ought to be in WINDOWS\system32\. If it isn't, copy it from WINDOWS\system32\dllcache\.
I, too, once found SndVol32.exe had evaporated, and copying from dllcache made everything happy. (This once happened to the fax software, too. I copied a bunch of files named fx??? from dllcache to get fax working.)
Posted by: Robert DiGrazia at November 18, 2009 7:22 PM