Vista System Tray Icon Weirdness

April 25, 2007 10:24 AM

I'm running Vista on a Toshiba Satellite A105-S361 and the icon I've highlighted at this link keeps showing up in my system tray. Setting to "Hide" gets rid of it for the current session, but upon re-starting Vista, it shows up again. Does anyone know how to get rid of this and/or what it is?
posted by chaosscontrol to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

It's the icon that lets you know that windows has refused to let one or more programs run at startup for various reasons. double clicking it opens up a window for analyzing your startup programs that, as near as I can tell, is completely useless. I have yet to figure out what is being prevented from running and how to make this icon go away myself.
posted by shmegegge at 10:34 AM on April 25, 2007

Check in windows defender.
posted by IronLizard at 11:42 AM on April 25, 2007

I have to disagree with shmegegge, we have a Toshiba in our lab and that icon shows when the mouse is plugged in and the touchpad is inactivated.
posted by LunaticFringe at 12:56 PM on April 25, 2007

I think lunaticfringe is right. I've seen that icon (or at least a similar looking one) on Toshiba's before. See the AS105-S361 manual (PDF link) page 63 for more details.

I think the Vista "blocked programs" icon is similar but different. See this image for comparison.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 2:36 PM on April 25, 2007

After zooming in the first image, it does appear to be touchpad icon. Unplug your mouse and see if it goes away.
posted by IronLizard at 2:41 PM on April 25, 2007

my bad.
posted by shmegegge at 5:45 PM on April 25, 2007