Internet Connection Icon won't display in Systray

[rifleman]

I have a clean install of XP Pro. The only patches I have installed are IE6 Cumulative and Blaster. I run Avast AV and kerio Firewall.
I have only one Internet Dial-up Connection set up, through a USB TA.
Suddenly, maybe yesterday or the day before, without any settings being altered, the connection icons in the systray have disappeared. (The box is checked in the Connection properties, but the systray itewm appears in the "Past" section of the "Hide Icons" dialog in Advanced Taskbar properties, not the current). Also the detail beside the connection icon in "Show all connections" window says "Disconnected" when in fact it actually IS connected.
I've tried deleting the connection, rebooting and recreating the connection, unchecking the "Show notification" box, rebooting and rechecking, but all to no avail!
Help!

The connection BTW works perfectly!

 

[bcastner]

When you say "icons" are you referring to the Network Connection icon and the Internet Gateway icon?

If you enable both it is a known issue that the Internet Gateway icon will interfere with (read make disappear) the Network Connection icon.

It is better to disable showing the Internet Connection icon on the Task Bar. The GDI is very talkative, and you do not need the traffic.

Disable showing the Internet Connection Gateway icon and disable and then re-enable the Network Connection icon. It may take a reboot for the setting to take.

 

[rifleman]

Thanks for the quick response!

Unfortunately, that's made no difference. the "Show Network Icon" is unchecked, and the network connection icon does not show in the systray, even though the network (p 2 p) is up and running. The "Show internet connection icon" IS checked and does NOT show in the systray. (When connected that is). The detail of the Internet Connection STILL shows "Disconnected" when I am indeed connected, as I am right now, typing this reply!

I'm Baffled!

 

[bcastner]

The Internet Connection (GDI) icon is problematic. Uncheck it, its status is not reliable, it messes up the system tray, and is too talkative. You want to enable showing the Network Connection icon. This should reliably show once the GDI icon is set not to show.

For the GDI icon to have any meaning you must be certain that both the uPnP service client is installed and has not been disabled by a registry edit; and that SSD Discovery service is installed and running. Even then it does not reliably show discovery results.

Just disable the GDI icon, and enable the Network Connection icon. It is really the only meaningful icon unless you need to assert GDI control over an ICS connection or a uPnP enabled router.

 

[rifleman]

OK so I can do without the connection icon in the systray, but why does the detail of the connection in "Show all Connections" window say it's disconnected when it's actually connected? Surely there's something wrong there? It never used to AFAIK.

 

[rifleman]

The major problem with this is that without the icon in the systray, and the detail in the connection window saying it's not connected, is that I can't actually disconnect without either invoking a program that will allow me to disconnect, or use Task Manager to stop the process. (What process is dial-up?)

 

[bcastner]

I am missing something here. Lets go back to the way you had the icons showing/not showing originally, as it is clearer to me that this is an ICS issue.

Are you sharing the dialup connection?
And if so, and you are using ICS, is your machine hosting the modem, or are you a client to another network machine with the modem?

If the Show icon in taskbar notification area when connected check box is selected for the shared Internet connection, an icon for the shared Internet connection appears in the notification area on the taskbar each time that connection is enabled. When the shared Internet connection is disabled, the icon disappears from the notification area.

If the Allow other network users to control or disable the shared Internet connection check box has been selected on the Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) host computer, you can activate the shared Internet connection from a client computer by double-clicking the shared Internet connection icon, which is located in the Network Connections folder under Internet Gateway.

If the Allow other network users to control or disable the shared Internet connection check box is selected on the ICS host computer, and the Show icon in the notification area on the taskbar when connected check box is selected for the shared Internet connection on the client computer, you can disconnect the shared Internet connection by right-clicking the taskbar icon and selecting Disconnect.

If the Allow other network users to control or disable the shared Internet connection check box is not selected, client computers on your network are unable to control the shared Internet connection.

When you disconnect an active shared Internet connection, all of the active Internet sessions on your network terminate, and the icon for the shared Internet connection disappears from the notification area on the taskbar until the connection has been reactivated by any of your network computers.