task bar icon missing

Hello,

just some simple questions: Is Hide inactive icons checked in the taskbar properties (probably not as it stays until reboot)?. If you stop ALMon.exe (when the icon "is there") and start it - does the icon reappear? Is the laptop a standard installation or is there perhaps some smart program ("taskbar manager") installed?

Christian 

Thanks for your reply on this.  I have already tried your suggestions with no resolution.  I mentioned that I had questioned Sophos support but they had no answers either.  At this point, I believe it has something to do with a registry key that is not set correctly and therefore kicks-in after a reboot to remove the tray icon even though the ALMON.exe is still running.  I really want the tray icon so that I can right-click on it for the various functions it provides.  Of the over 17,000 computers in our district that are using Sophos Anti-Virus, I have not seen any of them have this issue.  We switched from McAfee because of the un-helpful support we were getting from them.  I hope Sophos is listening.

Hi,

The only configuration options that would modify the default behavior regarding this would be the registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Sophos\AutoUpdate\HideTrayIcon

and the value:

AllowMonitorToRun

in:

\Sophos\AutoUpdate\Config\imon.cfg

If the reg key is a 0 and the file set to a 1, then the machine is correctly configured. 

In that case if the process Almon.exe is always running after reboot but just no tray icon and if you relaunch the process after killing it and it displays, it looks like a strange timing issue at startup on the machine, such that Windows Explorer doesn't register the tray icon. 

It would be interesting to know if changing the timing of the launch changes if it appeared or not.  E.g.. have a batch file launch the exe from startup with a delay first.  Or move the launch point to the run key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\

add a new value pointing to Almon.exe and reboot, does that work?  Remembering to remove the shortcut from the start menu first, you don't want to launch almon.exe twice.

This might provide some insight into the behavior.

I would be inclined to log the boot process with Process Monitor to understand the order everything is starting up in, as another piece of software that is starting up might be having some affect on it.

Hope this helps.

Jak

Try this:

Stop almon.exe in the task manager

Start almon.exe from start/run...

If the icon is visible again, you might try a startup-script along these lines:

--- sophosmonitor.cmd ---

pskill.exe almon.exe

ping -n 10 127.0.0.1

start %programfiles%\sophos\Autoupdate\almon.exe

---

This is just a quick hack which requires testing!

Fwiw, we have never encountered this behaviour. It might occur that almon.exe is not visible after an engine update on an existing installation, but it will always be visible again after the next reboot. I believe this to be a case of a software incompatibility. The behaviour of the system-tray on Windows XP is not very stable, and I have seen a big number of issues with program which should appear in the tray but were not visible. The more software is installed on a system, the higher the chance of such an effect.

Best regards,

Detlev

I did stop almon.exe with task manager and then run it again with start>run.  The Sophos blue shield is now showing in the tray as it should.  Also checked the registry values and imon.cfg file as suggested and they are correct.  Next, I'm going to shutdown and re-boot.  Hope it still works after the re-boot.  I have very few items running in the system tray.  Thank you for the ideas.  I may yet try the delayed startup if this fails again.

Hi makeitwork,

Thanks for kicking off this interesting thread. Please let us know if the replies added up to a real resolution. If they did, it would be great if you could flag the most helpful response as an Accepted Solution. Whenever you do that, the flagged post rises to the top of search returns, making it easier for anyone with the same issue to find the answer.

Cheers,

spike

Hi,

Can you try changing imonitor to use the launching user:

Start, run, dcomcnfg > computers > my computer > dcom config >

imonitor - properties

identity - change to launching user - restart almon (kill it and re-launch)

If this does not work, any errors in event viewer ?

launch it with process monitor running - anything odd ?

Does the process stay running?

OD

Followed all the above mentioned exercise, still after logoff Sophos shield is not appearing, now took a process monitor log and send to Sophos support,  waiting for reply.

Hi Makeitwork

To put the icon in the task bar:

please try the following:

go to control panel\taskbar and start menu

under the taskbar tab, click on customise.

use drop down next to sophos icon to say 'always show'.

Kind regards

Disjoin one of your pc's from the existing domain, logon as local administrator, access the cid share from the server and reinstall the sophos ativirus, now the shield will appear on the startup, means some GPO is blocking it from the startup.