System icons volume is not active. How to restore the volume icon on the “Taskbar”: several solutions for different versions of Windows

When actively using a computer, laptop or netbook, sometimes minor but unpleasant problems arise. For example, what to do if the volume icon disappears at the bottom of the device screen. We will look at several options on how to return it back to the taskbar.

• Go to the menu<Пуск>at the bottom left of the desktop by clicking once with the left mouse button;
• Choosing a team<Выключить компьютер>, a small window with three commands will appear on the screen;
• Click<Перезагрузить>left mouse button.

• Left-click on the menu once<Пуск>;
• An extended menu window will appear - select from the list on the right side<Панель управления>, click on it.

• Right-click on the menu<Пуск>.
• A small window will appear<Свойства>, click on it.

The cause of the malfunction can only lie in two places: in the hardware of your computer, or in its software. In other words, the absence of sound is a consequence of a malfunction in the "hardware" PC, or this is due to the settings of the operating system, incorrect operation of some programs. It should be understood that the occurrence of such a breakdown does not depend on the OS or its newness. This happens in older versions, such as Windows XP, and in the latest Windows 8. It can also happen in Linux and other versions of the OS. Even if your equipment is the newest and most modern, the most expensive sound card, the highest quality speakers, you can still encounter a similar problem.

How to restore sound on a computer?

First, we must find out the very cause of the problem. We will determine the reason for the lack of sound in various ways, starting with the simplest and most basic ones.

To do this, we will follow, step by step, according to the following instructions:

If none of the above points helped you, then you need to use the latest option - call a technician for help, or take the PC to a workshop.

If the sound does not play or becomes bad.

In such cases, first of all, you need to remember what actions were performed on the computer the last time when the sound was normal. Perhaps you installed something new. In this case, the problem can be solved quite easily by uninstalling the program that you installed. In other cases, the problem may be due to the accidental removal of some important component in the operating system. Therefore, you should be careful about all programs that you delete. Follow all the recommendations for troubleshooting that were described above, most likely something will help. Always, in any unclear situations, you can use the help section, which is located in the menu Start.
When the sound is hoarse or otherwise distorted, check your audio settings. It may have gone wrong, or you may have accidentally added some sound effect that is now playing along with the sound.

It happens that the sound generally works normally, but in one specific program it is reproduced (or not reproduced) with poor quality. This can be solved by examining the sound settings in the program itself, or, as a last resort, reinstalling it, this should help.

Troubleshooting sound problems in Windows 7 and Windows XP

This add-on will discuss step by step what to do when there is no sound on the computer in the Windows XP and Windows 7 operating systems. So let's start in order:

Look in the bottom right corner of the screen for the location of the clock, which is displayed in the form of a speaker.

If this icon is missing, as in Windows XP, check the settings through the control panel located in the “Sounds and Audio Devices” section (instructions for Windows XP, point 4).

By left-clicking on this icon, you should make sure that the sound is on and the volume control is not located at the very bottom.

A window will open in which you need to mark whether the controls are enabled:

• Volume in mixer Windows7, Vista;

• Volume in the Windows XP mixer.

If you cannot change the settings due to the parameters being deactivated (they are highlighted in pale gray), the health of the audio device is checked in the task manager (step 3). If there are problems, you will need to reinstall the audio driver (step 6).

Before checking the settings and status of your sound card, make sure your speakers or headphones are turned on or connected correctly. The audio card contains a pin for connecting audio speakers, marked in green.

When installing more than one sound card on a computer, you need to ensure that the speakers are connected to the connector of the working card (which is used by the system). The wire connecting the speakers to the system unit must fit tightly.

It is best to check the performance of the speakers on another computer, or by connecting one of the suitable devices to the audio output.

To enter the “Device Manager”, click sequentially:
On Windows7 or Vista:

“Start”, then “Settings”, then “Control Panel” and “Device Manager”.

On Windows XP:

Right-click to open the context menu by clicking on the “My Computer” icon, selecting “Properties”, going to the “Hardware” tab and clicking “Device Manager”.

Your audio device should appear under Sound, video and gaming devices.

If the device is missing, or there is an exclamation mark next to it, the problem is a damaged or missing driver. In this case, the driver is completely updated or reinstalled (point 6).

To open the audio settings window in Windows 7 and Vista, you will need to click: “Start”, then “Settings”, “Control Panel” and “Sound”.

After this, a dialog box will open in which a list of all your devices will be visible. In this case, the default is one device:

The fact that the audio is working correctly is indicated by the corresponding inscription under the name with a green checkmark near the device icon.

If this window shows a different picture, characterizing obvious interruptions in the operation of the device, you will need to reinstall the driver (step 6).

On Windows XP:

Next, go to the “Volume” tab and make sure that the “Mute sound” checkbox is not checked. The mixer volume must be above zero.

If at this stage the settings are normal, but the sound on the computer disappears and does not return, proceed to the next step.

If it is impossible to move the mixer volume control and the presence of the inscription: “There are no sound devices” instead of your device, this serves as a signal that you need to reinstall the sound driver, or that the sound card is faulty (point 6).

To do this, open: “Start”, then “Settings”, then “Control Panel”, click “Administration” and at the end - “Services”. But a slightly different option is also possible.

“Start” – “Run”, then enter the command services.msc in the line, clicking “OK” to complete. A window will open in which you will need to find a service called “Windows Audio”.

If the service is started and running in “Auto” mode, as is clearly demonstrated in the figure, you will need to close the window and move on to the next step.

If the service is disabled, you will need to enable it. After selecting it with the right mouse button, click “Properties” in the drop-down menu.

In the properties window, you need to do the following:

1. Set the startup type to “Auto”;
2. Click “Run” (for Windows 7 or Vista), or “Start” (for Windows XP);
3. Click “Apply” and then “OK”.

If there is no effect, you can proceed to subsequent actions.

If problems are detected in the device manager, or in the window with audio parameters settings, indicating that the sound device is not working correctly, we are talking about a damaged or incorrectly working sound driver. You will definitely need to update it or reinstall it.

You can find the sound card driver on the disk that comes with the kit, or on the disk with drivers for the motherboard with a sound device integrated into the motherboard. A disk with drivers for the motherboard is provided with the computer at the time of purchase. Drivers must be suitable for your operating system (OS). For example, if you have Windows 7 and a driver disk for Windows XP, simply download the required driver from the card (motherboard) manufacturer's website.

Let's say you have a suitable package for installing the necessary drivers. In the “Device Manager” (“Control Panel”, “System”, “Hardware” and “Device Manager”), the currently installed audio driver will need to be removed. If the above is missing, you need to find “Multimedia audio controller”, and then remove the audio-video codecs installed on your PC. To do this, you will need to call “Add or Remove Programs” from the Control Panel, and then click on restart the system.

Restarting your computer in Windows 7 will allow you to update the system automatically using technology Plug and Play. To install manually, you will need to insert the driver disc into the drive.

Let's try to look at installing drivers, focusing on Windows XP. The differences between the Windows versions are only minor differences in the appearance of the dialog boxes.

Once you open the Device Manager window, look for the section that has “sound” or “multimedia” in its name. To open the device properties, simply double-click on it. Having selected the “Driver” tab, you need to click the “Update” button. A menu will open in which the system will prompt you for automatic or manual installation. Click the second item and then the “Next” button:

After the window opens, check the box next to “Include next search location.” The Browse button will help you specify the optical drive with the disc. By clicking the “Next” button, find the necessary drivers and install them.

Upon completion, you will receive a system notification that the driver installation was successful and you can use the equipment. As a result, you will be pleased with the sound that appears. In extreme cases, this will happen after a reboot.

7. Check if the settings in BIOS are correct

There may also be no sound in Windows due to the integrated audio card being turned off in the BIOS settings. To start the computer, press the Del button. In some PC models these are the F2, F10, F12 keys. In the list of motherboard devices, you will need to find the sound card, and then make sure that the switch opposite is set to the “Enabled” position.

A common reason for sudden loss of sound on a computer is a broken sound card. However, before purchasing a new one, you should make sure that after applying the above options, no actions help.

The main thing to remember is that any problem can be solved and the solution may turn out to be much simpler than it seems.

Greetings to all readers of my blog, today I will tell you what to do if the sound icon on the Windows 7 panel has disappeared and how to get it back.

This problem is not uncommon and is specific to the Windows 7 operating system. This may be caused by the fact that, for example, you previously installed an offline mixer (or volume control), in the settings of which the sound icon is naturally disabled. And then they deleted it, but the Windows sound icon itself will not return to the panel; it will have to be restored manually. This problem also occurs when the system is infected with viruses, driver failures, or Windows Explorer does not work correctly. I tell you how to get everything back into compliance in the instructions below.

The sound icon on the Windows 7 panel has disappeared. What should I do?

• First you need to right-click on the taskbar. A menu will open in front of us, in which we will need to find the line Properties. Click on it once with the mouse, left button.

• A settings window will open, where in the very first tab, as shown in the screenshot, we find and click the Configure button, which is located in the Notification Area block.

• A window for customizing icons in the notification area will open in front of us. Find the line Enable or disable system icons and left-click on it once.

• The window will refresh and a block will open in front of us indicating all the icons that may be on the taskbar. We need to find the one that is responsible for the volume. Opposite it, click on the line as shown in the screenshot.

• After clicking, a mini-menu will open in which we need to select the On item.

• When the settings change to On, for them to take effect, you must click on the OK button at the very bottom of the window.

• And for the system to accept the new settings, press the OK button again at the very bottom of the menu.

• After this, the sound icon will reappear in its usual place on the taskbar.

If the sound icon on the Windows 7 panel has disappeared, then do not despair. This is not such a difficult problem. I repeat, it often occurs spontaneously in this version of the operating system, and you can easily return it to its usual place on your own.

Question from user #1

Good afternoon.

The volume icon on my laptop has disappeared and now I can't turn the volume up or down. It’s very inconvenient, tell me what can be done?

Question from user #2

Hello. An unpleasant thing happened in my Windows 10 - I click on the volume icon in the tray, but it does not respond (that is, the volume slider itself does not appear). What could it be?

Good day.

Today I decided to combine several questions into one article (especially since the solution to both problems will be the same).

As a rule, when the volume icon disappears (and in general when there are various problems with it), it is enough to take a number of simple steps to restore operation. I will list them below in order.

Solving problems with the volume icon

STEP 1 - checking hidden icons

Windows hides little-used icons by default (though the speaker icon usually doesn't qualify for this). But nevertheless, now there are so many different builds of Windows, various tweaks, etc., that it doesn’t hurt to check.

To do this, click on the arrow in the tray and see if this sign is there (see an illustrative example below).

The sound icon appears to have been hidden by Windows as unused

STEP 2 - restart explorer

If there are problems with Explorer (and this includes everything you see: the desktop, taskbar, icons, etc.), problems also appear with the visibility of some elements, or their response to mouse clicks. Restarting Explorer helps solve this problem.

How to restart Explorer: Open task manager (key combination Ctrl+Shift+Esc), in processes find "conductor" (or explorer) right-click on it and select “Restart” from the menu (see screenshot below).

An alternative option for restarting Explorer: restart your computer.

STEP 3 - Checking the display of icons in the Windows Control Panel

Many icons (such as sound, power, network, clock, etc.) can be configured through . This is done in the “Design and Personalization” section, in the “Taskbar and Navigation” subsection (see screenshot below).

If you have Windows 7, then you can immediately start setting up what to display and what not.

If you have Windows 10, another window will appear in which you need to open one of two links (see below), for example, “Turn system icons on and off.”

Next, you can manually set what you want to see in the taskbar and what not. Regarding the volume icon - turn it on and off. Often such a restart helps solve the problem of its invisibility or inactivity.

Turn Windows 10 system icons on or off

STEP 4 - are icons hidden in the Group Policy Editor?

To open the Group Policy Editor, press the button combination Win+R, enter the command gpedit.msc and press Enter .

Note: Group Policy Editor does not open in Windows 10 Home.

Then look for the option (this is for Windows 10), or "Hide volume control icon" (this is for Windows 7).

Once you open the parameter, see if it is enabled! If enabled, change the value to “Not specified” (or “disabled”).

STEP 5 - editing the system registry

Due to “stuck” parameters in the system registry, it may well be that the volume icon will disappear (or will not respond adequately to your clicks on it). To return everything to its original state, you can try deleting a couple of parameters that are responsible for it and rebooting the PC. Let's show with an example...

First, open the registry editor:

1. click Win+R ;
2. enter the command in the execute window regedit
3. press Enter.

In principle, working with the registry is not much different from a regular Explorer.

You need to find two parameters: PastIconsStream And IconStreams, and delete both!

Don't forget to restart your computer after the operation!

STEP 6 - checking and setting up the sound driver

When installing drivers for sound, they often come with a special driver. audio control center. Thanks to it, you can fine-tune the sound, select tone, echo, adjust bass, etc. What I mean is that you can work with sound parameters without a system icon (and in most cases, it’s even more convenient)!

Volume2 or .

Thanks to such programs, you can move the sound settings to the place you need (for example, on the desktop or replace the standard icon in the tray) and not have problems with adjusting the volume (do everything in 1-2 mouse clicks).

Not to mention that you can bind the sound settings to the keys you need. The appearance of such icons is also very attractive and will satisfy any esthete (see example below).

That's all I have. For additions - thank you...

All the best to everyone!

It happens that the sound icon on the taskbar disappears. Let's figure out what to do with it and how to get it back.

1. If the sound itself disappears along with the sound icon, then you need to reinstall the sound drivers.
2. If the icon disappears, but there is sound, then there are several ways to solve this problem.

Control Panel

1. Open the control panel.

2. Select “Design and Personalization”.

3. In the “Taskbar and Navigation” section, select “Customize taskbar icons”.

4. Next to the “Volume” icon, set “Show icon and notifications”.

5. All that remains is to restart the computer and the missing icon will appear on the taskbar.

Local Group Policy Editor

1. To launch Group Policy, click on the Start button and enter gpedit.msc.

2. The editor will open. In it you need to click on “User Configuration” - “Administrative Templates” - “Start Menu and Taskbar” - “Hide the Volume Control Icon”.

3. In the window that opens, mark the “Disable” dot and click “Ok”.

4. Reboot the computer.

If you have the operating system Windows XP and Windows Vista, you can restore the sound icon by right-clicking on the taskbar and selecting “Properties” - “Customize”. Double-click on the sound icon with the left mouse button and click “OK.” After this, the icon should appear on your computer in the taskbar.