[SOLVED] Windows 10 Network icon greyed out

Solution
Let me clearly say this, without being disrespectfull, i think its ridiculous how you push anyone who has problems with windows for the one and only solution - get the latest version.

Say what you want, its all known that new windows versions have issues.

I came here with the questions how to fix my network icon i never asked anyone to tell me i should upgrade to latest version.

If you cant help me with my problem you have no reason to comment here.

Its just a guess you know, is toms hardware forum partnered with windows / microsoft to filter any negative feedback ?
Im not being rude alright but somethings fishy here.

Bugs ? Here you go...
D

Deleted member 14196

Guest
So - you disabled windows feature updates and now something is not working. Right?

May be stop messing with update settings and update to latest version instead.
You may as well mark this answer as solved OP. Stop messing with windows updates. Wipe the drive clean and reinstall windows and leave it alone
 

Morugs

BANNED
Mar 20, 2021
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So - you disabled windows feature updates and now something is not working. Right?

May be stop messing with update settings and update to latest version instead.

Windows feature updates are here for one reason only - to upgrade to the latest windows version, its a shame that you suggest someone to upgrade to an unstable OS, besides that, networking is supposed to work with 1909 version, this have NOTHING to do with 20H2.

Your comment seems very fishy to me, instead of helping you want me to use an unstable OS version, nice one.
 

Morugs

BANNED
Mar 20, 2021
38
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Let me clearly say this, without being disrespectfull, i think its ridiculous how you push anyone who has problems with windows for the one and only solution - get the latest version.

Say what you want, its all known that new windows versions have issues.

I came here with the questions how to fix my network icon i never asked anyone to tell me i should upgrade to latest version.

If you cant help me with my problem you have no reason to comment here.

Its just a guess you know, is toms hardware forum partnered with windows / microsoft to filter any negative feedback ?
Im not being rude alright but somethings fishy here.

Bugs ? Here you go.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-10-20h2/222f1d63-3027-4cb9-8123-959b421822a7

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...rd-drive/3981df53-e260-43ca-a0d5-e63260626e2e
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator
Let me clearly say this, without being disrespectfull, i think its ridiculous how you push anyone who has problems with windows for the one and only solution - get the latest version.

Say what you want, its all known that new windows versions have issues.

I came here with the questions how to fix my network icon i never asked anyone to tell me i should upgrade to latest version.

If you cant help me with my problem you have no reason to comment here.

Its just a guess you know, is toms hardware forum partnered with windows / microsoft to filter any negative feedback ?
Im not being rude alright but somethings fishy here.

Bugs ? Here you go.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-10-20h2/222f1d63-3027-4cb9-8123-959b421822a7

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...rd-drive/3981df53-e260-43ca-a0d5-e63260626e2e

Before you attack people lets give everyone all the information:

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/windows-10-update-issue.3702712/#post-22313784

You've disabled feature updates but have picked up other updates and are now on an unsupported version of Windows 10. Whether you like it or not one of those updates probably is causing your problem. Microsoft engineers have to take into account billions of system configurations when doing updates, the one constant they can keep is the setup of Windows itself. If you decide to change that, they can't account for it.

Did it occur to you that there IS no way to fix your issue, because its related to your actions.

The easiest and most likely way to fix a software problem is to first move to the newest supported version, unless there is some sort of hardware issue that prevents this. If you don't want to do that due to anecdotal failure evidence, there isn't much anyone can do for you.
 
Solution
Let me clearly say this, without being disrespectfull, i think its ridiculous how you push anyone who has problems with windows for the one and only solution - get the latest version.
So make image for OS partition.
Update windows to latest version and see, if that solves your issues.

If that doesn't solve anything or you encounter stability issues, then revert back to previous version.
Simple and easy solution - without much headache and figuring out, what custom configurations you have made, that have resulted in issues with your pc.

Advanced users with administrative privileges can make so much problems on their own with custom configurations.
Can be really complicated to solve. Sometimes reinstall becomes only option.
 

Morugs

BANNED
Mar 20, 2021
38
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45
Before you attack people lets give everyone all the information:

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/windows-10-update-issue.3702712/#post-22313784

You've disabled feature updates but have picked up other updates and are now on an unsupported version of Windows 10. Whether you like it or not one of those updates probably is causing your problem. Microsoft engineers have to take into account billions of system configurations when doing updates, the one constant they can keep is the setup of Windows itself. If you decide to change that, they can't account for it.

Did it occur to you that there IS no way to fix your issue, because its related to your actions.

The easiest and most likely way to fix a software problem is to first move to the newest supported version, unless there is some sort of hardware issue that prevents this. If you don't want to do that due to anecdotal failure evidence, there isn't much anyone can do for you.

You said "propably" my update configuration is causing this issue,
this could indeed be the cause of the problem, or it could be something else.

I tought there might be a service that i have disabled in msconfig which is causing this greyed out setting.
Was hoping you guys could help to make it work again.
I turned off a couple of services such as bloototh, fax, mobile, etc.
Turned them off because i didnt need them but could be i turned off one too many.
Are you aware of any service that has be set to "automatic" in order to fix the network icon which is currently greyed out?

Sidenote:
My 1909 windows is working flawless besides the greyed out network icon, and this is only a smal issue because i can still open the network settings another way, this is not a huge problem.
 

Udyr

Honorable
Mar 3, 2021
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9,690
https://i.ibb.co/T2VfznT/tomhw1.png
https://i.ibb.co/JsnY7Zm/network-icon-missing.png

Check the screenshots above. the network icon is missing in taskbar, in the windows settings, the option to show the icon is "on" but at the same time greyed out. im on admin account. why cant i change the setting and show the icon?

is there a specific service that has to be running for this setting to work?
See if any of these steps work for you
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator
You said "propably" my update configuration is causing this issue,
this could indeed be the cause of the problem, or it could be something else.

I tought there might be a service that i have disabled in msconfig which is causing this greyed out setting.
Was hoping you guys could help to make it work again.
I turned off a couple of services such as bloototh, fax, mobile, etc.
Turned them off because i didnt need them but could be i turned off one too many.
Are you aware of any service that has be set to "automatic" in order to fix the network icon which is currently greyed out?

Sidenote:
My 1909 windows is working flawless besides the greyed out network icon, and this is only a smal issue because i can still open the network settings another way, this is not a huge problem.

I see no reason why 1909 shouldn't still work well as it is supported up until 21H1 comes out. If you had disabled a service causing it, it would have happened when you did the disabling. Since you didn't mention that my assumption was this happened out of the blue.

That said its possible some update related one disabled service to another other, but thats a big speculation on my part, and probably unlikely.


This seems correct, if an update didn't break it, this should work.
 
I tought there might be a service that i have disabled in msconfig which is causing this greyed out setting.
I turned off a couple of services such as bloototh, fax, mobile, etc.
Turned them off because i didnt need them but could be i turned off one too many.
Cool.
First you disable some updates.
Now we learn, you disabled also some random services (obviously without appropriate knowledge about service dependencies and what those services are related to).
Who knows, what else you have disabled there.

Imagine - what a nightmare it is to diagnose such pc. You could probably spend days trying to figure out, what's wrong with it.
 

Morugs

BANNED
Mar 20, 2021
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My network icon is working now, problem solved.
Was easy as setting a single service from disabled to manuall.
Servicename = NLA / network location awareness.

Ofcourse it was my bad that i turned this service off, that being said its ridiculous how many forum users here told me to install the latest windows version when all i had to do was enabling a single service.

People really need to clam down with windows updates, what version of windows someone is running on their own PC is absolutly no business for anyone expect the person who owns the PC.

Everyone knows we do not own windows, just the license key.
Everyone knows microsoft can push forced updates.

The thing is, you are not microsoft, you are simply toms hardware forum users.

If there was a "feedback" option to a solved thread, in terms of how effective the suggestion from members of the forum where, i would rate this 3/10.

When people bought the new Nvidia RTX 3090, it started "burning"
Same goes for Windows, new is NOT best. infact new OS are most likely unstable with many bugs.
I will update, when the time is right.
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator
My network icon is working now, problem solved.
Was easy as setting a single service from disabled to manuall.
Servicename = NLA / network location awareness.

Ofcourse it was my bad that i turned this service off, that being said its ridiculous how many forum users here told me to install the latest windows version when all i had to do was enabling a single service.

People really need to clam down with windows updates, what version of windows someone is running on their own PC is absolutly no business for anyone expect the person who owns the PC.

Everyone knows we do not own windows, just the license key.
Everyone knows microsoft can push forced updates.

The thing is, you are not microsoft, you are simply toms hardware forum users.

If there was a "feedback" option to a solved thread, in terms of how effective the suggestion from members of the forum where, i would rate this 3/10.

When people bought the new Nvidia RTX 3090, it started "burning"
Same goes for Windows, new is NOT best. infact new OS are most likely unstable with many bugs.
I will update, when the time is right.

And no one here knew that you disabled services until 10 posts in.

When you did say that you disabled some services, then of course we speculated it could be that. You're right, nobody here figured out your issue, but it was also pretty clearly obvious that your issue was due to your meddling with services that nobody knew about.

On top of that many of the users here have dealt with many people who feel they can do it "better" than Microsoft, and all they do is break Windows (or worse they just follow some Youtube channel). I'm not saying that is you, I'm just saying that is more common than not.

I'm glad you've resolved your issue.
 
D

Deleted member 14196

Guest
I figured he disabled all kinds of services without knowing what he was doing. instead of looking for a needle in a haystack offered the quickest fix format and reinstall and don’t mess with it

That will teach him in the future to take a snapshot of the system so he can compare what he did and figure out what he did instead of disabling windows updates and turning off services Willie Nilly
 
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