Are your Windows 11 taskbar icons missing after sleep? Not displaying correctly? We have been there – many times, the icons disappear from the taskbar windows 11 especially when you resume your computer from sleep. There is a way to solve this.
We have tried a lot of things – the dirtiest way to fix disappearing icon issue is by logging out and logging in. This requires you to save all data as any unsaved data is lost.
The right way to do this is by ending following tasks in Task Manager (ctrl + shift + esc).
SearchIndexer.exe
SearchHost.exe
ShellExperienceHost.exe
RuntimeBroker.exe
Then, end explorer.exe and restart it by typing in explorer.exe in run window. We suggest keeping a text file containing name of these process so that next time the icons disappear you know what processes to kill and then restart windows.exe to bring the icons back.
This issue has been irking Windows 11 users from past one year and it is weird to see this issue not getting fixed in so many updates ever since. Anyway, by following aforementioned steps, you will be able to get back all the windows icons that disappeared from taskbar.