Windows vista notification area

If not, either don't display the status, or put it in a log file. In this example, the disk drive activity icon is inappropriate because users are unlikely to change their behavior based on it.

Is the status critical? Is immediate action required? If so, display the information in a way that demands attention and cannot be easily ignored, such as a dialog box. Programs designed for Windows 7 can use overlay icons on the program's taskbar button to show change of status, as well as taskbar button progress bars to show progress of long-running tasks. Does the feature already have "desktop presence"? That is, when run, does the feature appear in a window on the desktop possibly minimized?

If so, display status in the program's status bar , other status area, or, for Windows 7, directly on the taskbar button. If the feature doesn't have desktop presence, you can use an icon for program access and to show status. Is the icon primarily to launch a program or access its features or settings quickly?

If so, use the Start menu to launch programs instead. The notification area isn't intended for quick program or command access. For programs designed for Windows 7, users can pin taskbar buttons for quick program access. Programs can use a Jump List or thumbnail toolbar to access frequently used commands directly from a program's toolbar button. The Quick Launch area isn't displayed by default in Windows 7. The Windows desktop access points include the Start button, taskbar, and notification area.

Note the thumbnail feature of the taskbar button. The desktop is a limited, shared resource that is the user's entry point to Windows. Leave users in control.

You should use the desktop areas as intended any other usage should be considered an abuse. For example, never view desktop areas as ways to promote your program or its Brand. The notification area was originally intended as a temporary source for notifications and status. Its efficiency and convenience has encouraged developers to give it other purposes, such as launching programs and executing commands.

Unfortunately over time, these additions made the notification area too large and noisy, and confused its purpose with the other desktop access points. Windows XP addressed the scale problem by making the area collapsible and hiding the unused icons. Windows Vista addressed the noise by removing unnecessary, annoying notifications. Windows 7 has gone a step further by focusing the notification on its original purpose of being a notification source.

Most icons are hidden by default in Windows 7, but can be promoted to the notification area manually, by the user. To keep users in control of their desktops, there is no way for your program to perform this promotion automatically. Windows still displays notifications for hidden icons by promoting them temporarily. In addition, Windows 7 supports many features directly in the taskbar buttons. Specifically, you can use:.

In short, if your program has desktop presence, take full advantage of the Windows 7 taskbar button features for these purposes. Keep the notification area icons focused on displaying notifications and status.

Keeping users in control extends beyond using the notification area correctly. Depending on the nature of your icon, you may want to let users do the following:.

Although it's a good idea to provide most of these settings on the icon's context menu, the program's default experience should be suitable for most users. Don't turn everything on by default and expect users to turn features off.

Rather, turn the important features on by default, and let users enable additional features as desired. For the temporary event status pattern, display the icon while the event is happening. For all other patterns, display the icon when the program, feature, or process is running and the icon is relevant unless the user has cleared its Display icon in notification area option for more information, see Context menus.

Most icons are hidden by default in Windows 7, but can be promoted to the notification area by the user. Don't display icons meant for administrators to standard users. Record the information in the Windows event log. In this example, Outlook uses an e-mail feature icon for a temporary notification source and its application icon for the minimized application.

Choose an easily recognizable icon design. Prefer icons with unique outlines over square or rectangular shaped icons. Keep the designs simple prefer symbols over realistic images. Apply the other Aero-style icon guidelines as well.

Use icon variations or overlays to indicate status or status changes. Use icon variations to show changes in quantities or strengths. For other types of status, use the following standard overlays. Here is how you display the icon in windows. If you are like me who listens to a lot of music and watches movies on the PC, then volume control in windows is a a frequently used utility to adjust the the sound volume.

By default, you may find the volume control icon on the taskbar in windows xp and in the notification area on the lower-right corner of the screen, in windows 7 and windows vista.

But what if you do not find the volume control icon in taskbar of windows xp or in the notification area of windows 7 or vista? If you do not find the volume control icon on the taskbar, here is how you add it to the taskbar to adjust the volume for your audio devices using the shortcut icon. Now, whenever you want to adjust the volume in windows XP, click the volume control icon and move the slider. If you have a PC running Windows 7 or vista and if Volume Control icon do not appear in the notification area in the lower-right corner of the screen, then do the following.

When you install windows 7 on your PC, the check boxes for the volume control, Network, and Power System icons are selected, by default, on the Notification Area tab of the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box. You may sometimes notice that they are not selected. The network, volume, and power features function correctly even though their associated icons do not appear in the notification area. Are you wondering why does this happen? When you first start a computer new computer , the operating system typically runs start up service initializations that may take from one to six hours to finish, depending on which applications are preloaded on the computer.

The above issue usually occurs if the PC is shut down or restarted before windows 7 or vista has finished initializing all the background services, before it is restarted. If you gave your computer, running windows 7 or vista, enough time to finish the start up service initializations before you restarted it, and one or more of the system icons like volume control icon etc.

Though the wizard is in English, the fix works for windows in other languages too. If you are not on the computer that has the problem, you can save the automatic fix, from the above link, to a flash drive or to a CD, and then you can run it on the computer that has the problem. If you prefer to edit the registry manually, then follow the steps mentioned below.

Can you help us improve? Resolved my issue. Clear instructions. Easy to follow. No jargon. Pictures helped. Didn't match my screen. Incorrect instructions. Too technical. Not enough information. Not enough pictures. Any additional feedback? Submit feedback.