How to Reset Notification Area Icons in Windows 10
The notification area is located at the right end of the taskbar, and it contains app and system icons that provide status and notifications about things like incoming email, updates, and network connectivity.
Sometimes the notification area icons cache may get corrupted causing the icons to display incorrectly or distorted, and still show icons of uninstalled apps in Notification Area Icons settings. When this happens, the notification area icons needs to be deleted in the registry to reset and automatically recreate it.
The notification area icons cache for each user account is located as the IconStreams and PastIconsStream binary values in the registry key below.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify
This tutorial will show you how to reset the notification area icons cache to fix any corrupted icons and remove any old icons from the taskbar notification area for your account in Windows 10.
EXAMPLE: Taskbar notification area icons
EXAMPLE: "Select which icons appear on the taskbar" in Settings
Here's How:
1 Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below.
Reset_Notification_Area_Icons_Cache.bat
Download
(Contents of .bat file for reference)
Code:@echo off set regPath=HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify set regKey1=IconStreams set regKey2=PastIconsStream echo. echo The Explorer process must be temporarily killed before deleting your notification area icons cache. echo. echo Please SAVE ALL OPEN WORK before continuing. echo. pause echo. taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F echo. FOR /F "tokens=*" %%a in ('Reg Query "%regpath%" /v %regkey1% ^| find /i "%regkey1%"') do goto IconStreams echo Registry key "IconStreams" already deleted. echo. :verify-PastIconsStream FOR /F "tokens=*" %%a in ('Reg Query "%regpath%" /v %regkey2% ^| find /i "%regkey2%"') do goto PastIconsStream echo Registry key "PastIconsStream" already deleted. echo. goto restart :IconStreams reg delete "%regpath%" /f /v "%regkey1%" goto verify-PastIconsStream :PastIconsStream reg delete "%regpath%" /f /v "%regkey2%" :restart echo. echo. echo You will need to restart the PC to finish resetting your notification area icons. echo. CHOICE /C:YN /M "Do you want to restart the PC now?" IF ERRORLEVEL 2 goto no IF ERRORLEVEL 1 goto yes :no echo. echo. echo Restarting explorer.... echo. echo Please remember to restart the PC later to finish resetting your notification area icons. echo. start explorer.exe pause exit /B :yes shutdown /r /f /t 00
2 Save the .bat file to your desktop.
3 Close and save anything that you are working on before proceeding. The next steps will involve killing explorer and restarting the PC.
4 Run the .bat file.
5 If prompted, click/tap on Run to approve. If you like, you can unblock the .bat file to no longer get the Run (Open File - Security Warning) prompt.
6 Follow the instructions in the command prompt to reset your notification area icons. If you do not restart the computer now, you will need to later to finish resetting your notification area icons. (see screenshots below)
That's it,
Shawn
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