Another way to do it is visit kellys-korner-xp.com (a great site) then scroll down to: 53. Remove Past Items From Notification Area
It's a .vbs file (it's safe) that you run, it will automatically end task Explorer.exe and restart it. However it's best to restart Windows because if you try to customize the icons in the SysTray they won't stay configured the way you put them which is the reason you need to restart Windows.
Did you remember to stop and then restart Explorer.exe via the task manager
No, I restarted computer...
Another way to do it is visit kellys-korner-xp.com (a great site) then scroll down to: 53. Remove Past Items From Notification Area
It's a .vbs file (it's safe) that you run, it will automatically end task Explorer.exe and restart it. However it's best to restart Windows because if you try to customize the icons in the SysTray they won't stay configured the way you put them which is the reason you need to restart Windows.