Symptoms

When you right-click the Taskbar and choose Properties, the option Hide inactive icons and the corresponding Customize button may be greyed out.

Cause

This happens if any of these two Policy settings are enabled for the Taskbar.

* NoAutoTrayNotify
* NoTrayItemsDisplay

Resolution

> Click Start, Run and type REGEDIT and press Enter

> Navigate to the following keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies\ Explorer

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies\ Explorer

> In the right-pane:

1 Delete the value NoAutoTrayNotify

2 Delete the value NoTrayItemsDisplay

> Close Registry Editor, logoff and re-login for the changes to take effect

In Windows XP Professional, you can also accomplish the above using Group Policy Editor.

> Click Start, Run and type GPEDIT.MSC

> Navigate to this path:

=> User Configuration

==> Administrative Templates

===> Start Menu and Taskbar

> Set Turn off notification area cleanup to Not Configured

> Set Hide the notification area to Not Configured