I recently formatted my hard drive and upgraded to Win XP Home Edition. When I first loaded the OS, I was able to see the "Hide Inactive Icons" button down in the bottom right corner of the taskbar (this is the round button with the arrows on it). Within a couple of day, the button disappeared and my inactive icons were no longer hidden (I checked the taskbar properties to make sure the feature was enabled to hide inactive icons). I decided to format my hard drive again just to see if a program I installed caused the problem, but the button did not return. I've seen this issue posted in newsgroups, but I have not seen a solution. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Try: Right click your clock, select Customize Notifications... Try setting some to "always show"

me again. The following is just a guide for you. Go there and see if "smtray.exe" is checked. the "Startup" tab in the "System Configuration Utility". To open this, click START, then RUN, then type: msconfig , then click OK. Find the the "Startup Item" that you want to dispose of, and uncheck its box, and click OK. USE CAUTION. Item names are not in plain language. For example: If you want to get rid of the gray Desktop Icon that is always on top of all your programs, then uncheck "WksSb". NOW, every time you start your computer, a dialoge box will appear saying that you have made changes to your computer. SO, in it, check the box for "Do not tell me again" (or what ever it said).

I looked for the file smtray.exe, but it did not show up on my computer. I used the msconfig utility and also a search for the file.

Doing more checking I find that I gave you the wrong information. smtray turns out to be related to Sound Max?? Try Start> Run> type: systray then OK System Tray or Notification Area is probably a setting in Registry. I do not mess with that.