PSM does not always appear in system tray

Hi,

I just started using this PuTTY Session Manager tool, and used this forum to understand how to put sessions in folders This is something I always missed when using putty.

I do have one small issue. I want to be able to start sessions using the PSM icon in the system tray (right-click on PSM icon, then "Load Session"). I also want to start PSM automatically when I log on to my Windows session.

I tried 2 things:
- use the "Start on logon" option of PSM
- unset the "Start on logon" option of PSM but put PSM in my "All Programs/Startup"  menu

When I open my session, PSM does start (has shown in the process manager under the name "PUTTY Session Manager.exe", but there is no icon in the System Tray.

Playing around with the options, I found a way to get the system tray working. What I ended up doing is to unset the option "Minimize on startup". This way the PuTTY Session Manager session window is displayed at startup, and when I close it, there is now an icon in the system tray (I did not check if the icon was there before I closed it)

Is there something I am doing wrong?

P.S. Thanks for this tool. It will really make my life easier to manage my 60+ PuTTY sessions.

I am using binary packege, version 0.41.166.0.

Stéphane

I realized I did not try it yet using "Start on logon" with the "Minimize on startup" set. So I did that, and there is no icon in the system tray. I then tried to go back to 2nd method (program in "All Programs/Startup") and now there are no system tray…

This is under Windows XP Professional SP3.

Thanks,

Stephane

Hi Stephane

Sorry to hear that you are having problems with PSM. 

I have seen this before , but it seems to be a timing problem with Windows, rather than a PSM specific issue.  I occasionally get it when I logon to Win XP too quickly after startup.  Do you find there are other sys tray icons missing( eg. the volume control )?

Have a read of the following:

http://winhlp.com/node/16

and see if that helps you ( but I can't recommend any particular solution, as I haven't tried any of them myself ).

Kind Regards
David

Thank you David,

I read the article you mentionned, and I believe this applies to my case. I tried multiple logoff and logon. Sometimes the icon is in the system tray, and sometimes not. When it is not in the system tray, I realize now that some other icons are missing too. It could be the Windows Search tool, it could be the smart card reader icon, or even the volume control icon.

One thing you should know is that this PC is my employer-provided PC and I always thought that the logon process is slow, which may mean that the IT group programmed some activities that run when I logon on.

To validate the explaination from the article, I created a little script that sleeps 40 seconds, then calls "PuTTY Session Manager.exe". I put that script in the "Startup" menu so that it can run it when I log on. With this, the icons always appears properly. Basically, this allows enough time for the logon process to complete, and wait until the PC is less busy before PSM will start up. The registration of PSM into the system tray does not timeout anymore.  That script is not really great because it leaves an CMD window running and if I close it will stop PSM.

What I ended up doing not starting PSM on logon. Instead I will start it by hand when I need it (which is often :-)…

Thanks David for your response.

Stéphane
I will simply remove