# Strange System Tray ICON



## murshizzle (Sep 3, 2009)

Hi guys,

Tonight I was on my new Dell Inspirion 15 laptop, running Vista basic when I noticed a strange new tray icon. I have taken a screen shot of it and will attach. Basically I can't do anything with it. It wont give me the option to open/close, see properties or any normal tray icon options. Just wondering what it is? And how I get rid of it. Oh and its the symbol that looks like a lock with the letter 'A' in it LOL. Thank you for all your help

If the attachment is to small, plz let me know as I will resize it and try again.


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## mullivar (Sep 11, 2009)

you could go start->run - msconfig and check the startup programs running. See if there is anything there that looks out of place.
I take it that it doesn't say what it is when you hover over it with the mouse.


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## murshizzle (Sep 3, 2009)

Thanks for replaying. No it does not say anything when I hover over it with the mouse. I ran msconfig and there were 4 things that stood out.. This is also a week old computer???? Do any of these seem misplaced?

Service: Andrea ST filters Service
Manufacturer: Andrea Electronics Corp

Service: Dock Login Service
Manufacturer: Star dock Corp

Service: Go To Assist
Manufacturer: Citrix Online

Service: Soft Thinks
Manufacturer: Soft Thinks Agent Service

Thanks again






mullivar said:


> you could go start->run - msconfig and check the startup programs running. See if there is anything there that looks out of place.
> I take it that it doesn't say what it is when you hover over it with the mouse.


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## blah789 (Aug 25, 2008)

The other thing to do (and this can be a bit dangerous), is to go into task manager (right-click taskbar, task manager, processes tab), then kill processes one by one, then go back and hover over the A and see if it's disappeared after you kill each one.
Before you do that, close all other system tray icons, and close all your programs and windows so you have as little stuff running as possible.
Once the icon disappears when you've hovered, then you know the name of the process that it was.

The reason why I say it's a bit dangerous is, kill the wrong process (a critical system process for instance) and you might crash, hang, or BSOD.


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## tdk1988 (Sep 9, 2009)

blah789 said:


> The other thing to do (and this can be a bit dangerous), is to go into task manager (right-click taskbar, task manager, processes tab), then kill processes one by one, then go back and hover over the A and see if it's disappeared after you kill each one.
> Before you do that, close all other system tray icons, and close all your programs and windows so you have as little stuff running as possible.
> Once the icon disappears when you've hovered, then you know the name of the process that it was.
> 
> The reason why I say it's a bit dangerous is, kill the wrong process (a critical system process for instance) and you might crash, hang, or BSOD.


if the process is a critical system process you can't kill it
double click on the strange tray icon to see if some kind of menu shows up
if it appears then there should be an option in it to disable or hide sys tray icon


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## jcgriff2 (Sep 30, 2007)

Check the Notification Area in the Taskbar & Start Menu -
START | RIGHT-click "Properties" | "Notification" tab | "Customize"

What is the description of this unknown item?

jcgriff2

.


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## murshizzle (Sep 3, 2009)

I can't do anything with the icon. Nothing happens when I click on it (right/left) or when I hover over it.. I will try the Process you just mentioned when I get home from work. When you ask for a description what do u mean? I gave a picture and said it looked like a lock with the letter 'A' in it. If u need something different could you be more specific? Thank you



jcgriff2 said:


> Check the Notification Area in the Taskbar & Start Menu -
> START | RIGHT-click "Properties" | "Notification" tab | "Customize"
> 
> What is the description of this unknown item?
> ...


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## jcgriff2 (Sep 30, 2007)

Hi - 

I'm a little off on the instructions... apologies.

You're going to look at the Start Menu - "Notification Area" tab. You are not going near the Notification area (bottom right of screen) -

RIGHT-click on START | "Properties" | "Notification" tab | "Customize"

That will take you to a screen with "Icon" & "Behavior" columns. In here you should find a description under the icon column.

jcgriff2

.


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## wrongturn (Mar 23, 2010)

Okay, I've had the EXACT same icon show up in my system tray. Just happened about ten minutes ago (March 22nd, 2010). I couldn't do anything with it. I tried hovering over it, right clicking, left clicking it. I rebooted my laptop and then shortly afterward it reappeared. Then it seems to have disappeared just as I did a Google Search about it with the keywords "Letter A" "system tray".

It's not coming back at the moment, which is a little worrying. How can I further diagnose this issue on a Windows Vista system? I didn't quite understand the above instructions.


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## wrongturn (Mar 23, 2010)

Okay, this might be highly relevant: I have a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop with Intel Pentium Dual CPU T3400. Could this be a DELL remote application?


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## jenae (Jun 17, 2008)

Hi,JC is on the right track:-



> You're going to look at the Start Menu - "Notification Area" tab. You are not going near the Notification area (bottom right of screen) -
> 
> RIGHT-click on START | "Properties" | "Notification" tab | "Customize"
> 
> That will take you to a screen with "Icon" & "Behavior" columns. In here you should find a description under the icon column.


You will see something like this:-











Then after clicking on "customize" :-










Post back with the Icon details, if you wish we will show you how to delete it OR you could select "hide when inactive".


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## wrongturn (Mar 23, 2010)

Well, I did that and none of the current Notification Icons showed the weird lock with the letter A in it. None of the past Notification Icons showed the weird lock with the letter A in it, either, so I changed all their behaviors to "Show". That didn't affect anything as the weird lock icon didn't show up in the system tray.

There's a whole list of past Notification Icons. Are they in any order, as in the one that recently popped up should be at the top?


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## wrongturn (Mar 23, 2010)

Okay, so it happened again the other night. This "letter A" thing appeared just as I was making an online purchase and placing sensitive Credit Card information in a form. Highly suspect. I might be able to rule Dell out since I pretty much removed all of their remote help applications. What I did do, is go through the processes (system and user) one by one, killing them, until the "letter A" system tray icon disappeared. Unfortunately I killed too many applications without doing a refresh of the system tray icons by mousing over them to see if the "letter A" application was there. Once it did disappear I wasn't able to isolate the killed process that might have been responsible. Anyhow, am I going about this the right way? Is there a better method I should be using to isolate this *******?


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## wrongturn (Mar 23, 2010)

Funny ending to this story: the "letter A" icon in the system tray is a result of pressing the CAPS LOCK key in Windows Vista. If the "letter A" icon is in the system tray that means that you've pressed CAPS LOCK, which is what I was doing when I put in my Credit Card information so that my name would be in all upper cases. Wow. Talk about a case of wild paranoia.


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