Win98...Soundblaster live MP3 sound card installed, and works...updated driver from Creative installed...volume sliders in media applications work...systray set to load with windows per msconfig startup...system is AMD Athalon 700mhz on a FIC SD11 mainboard. The volume control doesn't load in the systray. 'Show volume control in taskbar' selection in Multimedia Properties is greyed out. The soundcard is a PCI slot based. Can not launch volume control from programs, entertainment, volume control.

You prolly need to install it, from control panel, add/remove programs/ windows setup... I do beleive it is under multimedia, make sure there is a chcek next to volume control icon. If that doesnt work, go to multi media in control panel, and click show volume control on task bar Good LUck Fixittt@hotmail.com

You might have a problem with winmm.dll. Some sound card drivers are not compatible. You can download an earlier version of winmm from solo.abac.com/dllarchive/index.htm

As Robert has suggested, open the Control Panel and open Add/Remove. Under Windows Setup find the Multimedia option. Open it to see exactly what is setup on your machine. If the volume control is checked it is installed. If not it isn't. You can add it by checking it's box. DO NOT change any other feature anywhere (unless you want to add or remove it). Click Apply and have your Windows CD handy. If it is there go back to the Control Panel and open Multimedia. On the Audio tab make sure that the box next to Show Volume Control In Task Bar is checked. Click OK. If the speaker does not come up at once then you have s software conflict. You may have to uninstall the soundcard software (thriugh Add/Remove) and try again. As Bryan suggests you might have a bad or corrupt winmm.dll. You should be able to extract this single file from your Windows CD and replace it.

**message from person posting question** This problem occured when I reinstalled Win98(upgrade). I had to load windows in safe mode...used add/remove programs to remove the creative software. Then I rebooted to normal Win. I then had to reinstall the latest drivers from FIC (mainboard), which, among its qualities, contains PCI bus management utility (VIA chipset driver)<<< missing this caused problem. Following this I installed the Live 3.0 software which I obtained from Creative. Prior to this the board wasn't able to fully recognize the pci based sound card. Lesson learned-pci based card recognition problems are most likely rooted in the chipset driver configuration.