I am trying to fix my computer. The desktop icons and the icons in the lower right hand corner disappear and reappear. The only way I can do anything is through the task manager. Same thing in safe mode. No viruses/spyware. I was looking through the windows xp knowledge base and as far as i could tell, I needed to increase my icon cache. Well I downloaded a file from kelly's-korner to import to the registry so that you can change the icon cache size in folder options. I had it all the way up to 4096 (default was 500). This did not help any. I am completely stumped. If anybody has any suggestions at all, please let me know. Please sit back and relax while Windows 98 installs on your computer.

There is an option to find inactive icons. You may have that enabled. Is anything showing in that corner? There are a number of options related to the Taskbar. To view the options, Right click on the start button> properties> taskbar.

"....the icons in the lower right hand corner ..." That's called the Task Bar (area). XP with SP2 updates installed (all MCE versions have SP2 updates included) defaults to hiding icons in the Task Bar for things you aren't using all the time - if some icons are hidden, you should see a < character in the task bar - clicking on that displays the icons for things that are considered infrequently used. If you want to turn off that default setting, RIGHT click on any blank area in the bar at the bottom of the screen, choose Properties, and click on the checkmark beside Hide inactive icons to remove the checkmark, then OK. If it's just some icons that disappear despite that, such as the speaker one for sound, try un-installing the software associated with it in in Add/Remove Programs, then re-installing it.