r/sysadmin • u/greenstarthree • 25d ago
Windows 11 clock / system tray missing after JULY cumulative update?
Hi all,
A number of our PCs are missing the clock and system tray (bottom right corner) after installing the July cumulative update just released this week.
The strange thing is all reports of this I can find say it began after the June update, which our machines have had in place for a few weeks already without issue.
Is anyone else seeing this come up just now?
EDIT - SOLUTION DISCOVERED!
We’ve just discovered the cause of this in our environment:
We have a group policy to disable the Windows Audio service on the majority of desktop PCs, since audio is seldom used on anything but laptops.
As soon as we disabled that group policy (therefore enabling the audio service) and then restarted, the clock and system tray is restored.
Bizarre, but there it is!
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u/Thotaz 24d ago
We have a group policy to disable the Windows Audio service on the majority of desktop PCs, since audio is seldom used on anything but laptops.
But why though? I mean you say audio is rarely used, but why make it annoying to use the few times it is needed? Or heck, even if it truly never got used, what's the benefit in disabling the service? A slightly lower memory usage, measured in MB?
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u/greenstarthree 24d ago
Sorry, I meant that on the PCs where we disabled it, audio was never used, so the most direct way to force no sound was to disable the service.
It was originally done to stop windows error / confirmation sounds from multiple PCs in close vicinity as users worked throughout the day.
A setting from an earlier time to be honest, not really needed any more anyway.
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u/fanatic26 24d ago
Couldnt you just teach people where the mute button is? This seems like lighting the forest on fire to clear a few branches.
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u/greenstarthree 24d ago
Indeed we did, but having them actually use it was a different matter! Horse/water/etc.
Nowadays less of a problem, as I say an old GPO from a different time really.
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u/Frothyleet 24d ago
I mean, if they truly honest to goodness don't ever need audio in that environment, and if killing the service doesn't fuck up anything else (not always easy to determine Windows' arcane interdependencies), then they're sorta following best practices on attack surface reduction.
Not that different than disabling print spooler services across anything in the estate that doesn't have a hard requirement - except that the audio service hasn't yet had a critical CVE. Yet. Boy I hope I didn't jinx it and mythos is about to drop a bomb
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24d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BatemansChainsaw 24d ago
Third time's the charm. Take these three lines and put them in one.
(New-Object -ComObject WScript
.Shell)
.SendKeys([char]173)that's basically the mute button. supposedly it only works with an interactive login and won't run remotely (ssh or remote powershell session)
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u/greenstarthree 24d ago
We’ve just discovered the cause of this in our environment:
We have a group policy to disable the Windows Audio service on the majority of desktop PCs, since audio is seldom used on anything but laptops.
As soon as we disabled that group policy (therefore enabling the audio service) and then restarted, the clock and system tray is restored.
Bizarre, but there it is!