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So, the battery icon just disappeared from my task bar. I look around and find out that I should check the task bar settings and set "power" to "on". "power" is greyed out. I find out that to fix this I should go to the device manager and do some things there under "Battery". The device manager doesn't even list "Battery". Any more ideas? Thanks. BTW, this is a company laptop. Any ideas that involve privileged user status just won't fly.

UPDATE: Well, it disappeared when I connected to my company's VPN. What the heck does a VPN have to do with battery life? I re-booted and rec-connected to the VPN, and the battery icon is back. So problem solved for now. But for reasons I won't go into, I really need to see that icon and I don't want to keep rebooting. SO, Any ideas what's going on?

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    Try updating the Power Manager driver for this machine
    – anon
    Commented Apr 6, 2020 at 14:00

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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When I faced this problem I turned on the battery icon from settings yet the laptop wasn't showing the icon. Then I found a solution that worked for me and till now I'm using that solution.

You've to open task manager, there you'll find a file named "Windows Explorer" (see screenshot), click that file and restart. This should solve the issue.

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  • Thanks. My company actually won't let me open the task manager. sigh. But will keep it in mind. BTW, if your sound icon ever disappears, the solution you give will solve that too. I have used it many times on my home laptop. Thanks again.
    – bob.sacamento
    Commented Jun 10, 2022 at 23:03
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Your battery icon might still be in the notification area, but hidden, To look for it, click the up arrow to the left of your notification icons on the taskbar.

If you see the battery icon here (an area Microsoft calls the notification area overflow pane), simply drag and drop it back to the notification area on your taskbar.

enter image description here

If you don’t see the battery icon in the panel of hidden icons, right-click your taskbar and select “Taskbar Settings.”

You can also head to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar instead.

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Scroll down in the Settings window that appears and click “Turn system icons on or off” under Notification area.

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Locate the “Power” icon in the list here and toggle it to “On” by clicking it. It will reappear on your taskbar.

You can also toggle other system icons on or off from here, including Clock, Volume, Network, Input Indicator, Location, Action Center, Touch Keyboard, Windows Ink Workspace, and Touchpad.

enter image description here

Even after you’ve restored the battery icon, it won’t show an estimate of the remaining battery time when you mouse over it. Microsoft has disabled that feature—likely because it’s generally inaccurate. You can still re-enable the battery life estimate with a registry hack.

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    That last step there is where I run into trouble. It's grayed out and I can't change it at all. THanks.
    – bob.sacamento
    Commented Apr 6, 2020 at 14:04
  • Generally it being grayed out means that there is no battery, but that cannot be the case. Since this is a company laptop, you can ask the company tech department for assistance.
    – helper
    Commented Apr 6, 2020 at 14:06
  • You can also try (if you have access to Device Manager, that is), to disable, then re-enable the "Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery" device in the Battery section. That usually does the trick, without the need to restart (but in some cases you'll have to), or log off (ditto).
    – user1019780
    Commented Apr 6, 2020 at 14:23
  • My power toggle is also grayed out. This answer made the battery indicator reappear in my taskbar.
    – Joman68
    Commented Nov 15, 2022 at 0:44

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