ehtray.exe Problem

Hi. This might be more appropriate in the Hardware section of the forums. If so, mods feel free to move it.

Anyway, I have slight annoyance I was hoping someone could help me out with.

I purchased a Logitech AudioHub about two weeks ago for my Windows XP Media Center Gateway laptop (a MX6960). The AudioHub is a USB speaker system.

When I unplug AudioHub's USB cable from my laptop, the on screen volume indicator (the green bars) cease to indicate the current volume. There's no option in my system tray to safely unplug the AudioHub and going to Start>Run>RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll (the Safely Remove Hardware window) shows no option to safely remove the USB speakers.

The problem is not fixed when I plug AudioHub back into my laptop. I have found that restarting my laptop with the AudioHub plugged in solves the problem. Restarting ehtray.exe (the process that controls the on screen volume indicator) with Process Explorer solves the problem as well.

I tested the AudioHub on a Vista PC that uses the IntelliType software from Microsoft as its on screen volume indicator. As far as I know, ehtray.exe is not included in Vista. The Vista PC did NOT have the same problems my Gateway lap does.

I would just install the IntelliType software on my laptop, but that would not prevent the ehtray.exe volume indicator from being displayed incorrectly. I don't want to disable ehtray.exe completely, because I use a Media Center Remote and ehtray.exe is needed for the remote to function. Also, I don't particularly want all of the unnecessary stuff that IntelliType includes. I just want an on screen volume indicator.

So, here are my questions:

1. Is there anyway you can think of to fix the ehtray.exe from malfunctioning when the AudioHub is unplugged other than restarting it?

2. If the answer is no to the above how can I created a script to restart ehtray.exe (I could use a hotkey to run the script I assume)?

Thank-you for reading and for your response.

~Joe