[FIX] Network Icon Missing From Windows 10 Taskbar

The network icon on the taskbar helps you to identify whether you network access or not. This icon is also useful when you’ve to switch between different network connections. You just click on this icon and connect to the network of your wish.

Now consider a scenario in which the network icon is missing from taskbar. In the absence of this icon, you’ve to go to Settings app > Network & Internet section, each time to manage networking your system. Obviously, this would be quite tedious to follow and hence there becomes crucial need to restore the missing network icon.

Below mentioned steps will help you recover the missing network icon in Windows 10.

FIX: Network Icon Missing From Windows 10 Taskbar

WAY 1 – Via Settings App

1. Right click Start Button or press + X keys and select Settings.

2. In the Settings app, navigate to Personalization > Taskbar.

3. Moving on, under Taskbar, click Turn system icons on or Off link.

4. Then under Turn system icons on or Off, make sure Network option is turned On.

This action should restore network icon back on the taskbar. If it doesn’t, go ahead for FIX 2 mentioned below.

FIX 2 – Via Registry

1. Press + R and put regedit in Run dialog box to open Registry Editor (if you’re not familiar with Registry Editor, then click here). Click OK.

2. In left pane of Registry Editor window, navigate to following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

3. Now in the right pane of Explorer registry key, you must find HideSCANetwork named registry DWORD (REG_DWORD) which is set to 1. This is the root cause of the problem and is main culprit for missing network icon case. So double click on this registry DWORD to modify its Value data:

4. Finally, set the Value data to 0 and click OK. If you like, you can directly delete this registry DWORD as well. Both of these operations should restore the network icon on taskbar. Close Registry Editor and reboot to make changes effective.

After restarting your machine, network icon will no longer be missing:

Checkout this video to illustrate this fix:

That’s it!