Restore the Network Icon in the Vista Taskbar

It's a particularly annoying feature of Vista that sometimes the network icon in the Notification area of the Taskbar will just disappear, making it a pain to work with internet connections. One of the following two solutions has always worked for me to restore the missing network icon in the Taskbar.

Solution One

  1. Right-click on the Taskbar.
  2. Select "Properties".
  3. Select the "Notification Area" tab.
  4. Check the checkbox marked "network".
  5. Click on the "Apply" button.
  6. Click on the "OK" button.
  7. Close the window.

If the "network" checkbox is grayed out and you can't select it, Move on to Solution Two

Solution Two

  1. Close any open programs
  2. Press Ctrl-Shift-Escape to bring up the task manager.
  3. Select the "Processes" tab.
  4. Select the "explorer.exe" process.
  5. Click on the "End Process" button.
  6. On the "File" menu, select "New Process".
  7. enter "explorer.exe" (it will probably be there already).
  8. Click on the "OK" button.
  9. Close the window.

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  —  Bob Ray