Shell Icon

It sounds like you have some rogue application that is attempting to use the
Shell_NotifyIcon API call, fails, and gives you a terrible error message.
Microsoft isn't responsible for the error message that the application
provides - it simply returns true or false based on whether the operation
succeeded or failed. The application can do whatever it wants with this
return value - in this case, it is taking the very useless action of
presenting a dialog box to you.

What you need to do is determine what application is giving you this error
(and possibly slowing you down) - try using the msconfig utility from an
admin account and selectively trimming the number of programs running at
startup by 1/2 at a time until you can pinpoint the application that is
failing. Yes, it will take a lot of reboots, but by going through half at a
time you'll get there faster than uninstalling programs one by one.


--
Chris Jackson
Software Engineer
Microsoft MVP - Windows XP
Windows XP Associate Expert
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"Marc Schindler" <mschindler@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:077f01c392c1$e6e42280$a301280a@phx.gbl...

> My system has slowed down considerably, and when I reboot
> now (since this problem has started occuring) I get a small
> window that says "Shell NotifiyIcon Fail"
>
> Anybody knows what this means?
>
> Follow-on: anybody know how to arrange Microsoft
> remuneration based on an inverse relationship to the
> incomprehensibility of error messages that the user
> actually sees? ;-)
>
> The answer to the last question should, of course, be
> prepared according to the parameters in:
> Z://MESSAGE=78FR42/schindler/smartass.dll