Running XP home, SP2.
My volume control icon will not stay in the task bar. I do sounds > volume > place icon in task bar >apply,  in the control panel but after a restart it is unchecked again. The odd part is my "safely remove drive" and DSL icons come and go with it. Once I get the speaker icon back the rest are there also.
Thanks for helping

   I know of two possibilities.
   One is that they are actually there but XP hides them after a while.  When this happens there is a circle button next to the time with a < on it.  If you click on that, it will show them all.  After it has been idle for a while, it will hide them again.
   If that is not the problem, it could be that the SysTray item in startup is being removed.  Very early versions of Speed Startup used to remove SysTray.  If you are using Speed Startup, please make sure that it is not removing it.

Thanks for the quick reply. I do not have the icons hid and I moved SysTray to #1 rank in SpeedStartup, with no change after a restart. For want of a better term, I think Windows sometimes just gets flakey. It recently stopped letting me use the sleep key to hibernate. I now have to do it through the start menu. And then, instead of getting the desktop the login screen appears.

   Please go to the Contents section of Speed Startup, find the SysTray item in the All Items list, select it, and click on the Restore button.
   SysTray cannot be run in Startup Lineup or in Manual Run.  Newer versions of Speed Startup do not allow it to be put there.

It worked. Thanks!