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Ok so, i'm aware that in the registry you can easily "always show all icons in the notification area" or turn this feature off. What I'm looking for is a way to specifically hide or show an applications icon in the notification area. So, this can be done manually by dragging the notification to and from the hidden area and i want to be able to do this through the registry.

What is happening is that i'm installing software that comes with a systray icon, but immediately after installation the systray icon is hidden so i'd like to be able to push a registry edit that unhides it, which would have the same effect as going to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Select which icons appear on the task bar > and then clicking the slider next to a specific app to hide or show.

I do NOT want to "Always show all icons in the notification" area because there are some systems that might have a dozen hidden icons for various things and it takes up a significant amount of space on the taskbar.

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    I don't think that you are going to find what you are looking for. The key is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify . You will see two entries that end with "streams".. I believe that these use an undocumented API to create a crc/hash of "approved to show" applications. It isn't done by exe name or path. To validate my hypothesis (not prove), every time I get an update to an application (like slack or even outlook).. it is no longer shown until I re-add it (due to a different hash). Good luck. May 4, 2020 at 19:38
  • I see that. Doesnt seem do-able with that registry entry. So i guess my next question is, what is it that causes windows to hide them in the first place? When the app is initially installed, the icon is shown but then after a few seconds it goes into hidden mode and has to be manually shown again and then it persists. I wonder if theres a way to either tell windows not to hide new icons or something else to trigger the icon to come back programmatically. May 5, 2020 at 21:17
  • It is simply how the explorer was written. The original explorer showed EVERYTHING.. I am mostly sure that they needed this feature to ensure backward compatibility which is why they show initially.. then the explorer sweeps up on a timer. May 6, 2020 at 15:51

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