Speaker icon
 

I have it set to appear in the taskbar (XP) on bootup.

Half the time, it gets skipped for some reason and doesn't appear. Since I set the default as muted this is a bit of a pain, and I have to access it through control panel when this happens.

Does anyone know the name (presumably a .exe?) of the file which fires up the icon?

Have a look at this it may help

Thanks for that.

The article doesn't quite address the problem, but it does give me that elusive file name.

Are you 'hiding unused icons'?

Yes, but I've often checked and it's never been amongst the hidden ones.

Could you check the settings for 'Volume'? Rt Click 'Start' then properties then tick hide inactive and customise. See what settings you have for the Speaker icon. Might be worth a fiddle.

Vulcanised, my XP desktop machine does the exact same thing! I usually hibernate rather than shut down to avoid the occurrence as much as possible.

It's been doing this for years. 50:50 chance whether it boots correctly or not.:ugh:

Aha !

So it's a 'feature' of XP.

Thanks.

This might help...

Systray icons missing | Windows Problem Solver