IM box will not appear
The system tray (in short: systray, nowadays also called taskbar notification area) is the icon strip normally located near the right end of the task bar, next to the clock.
Some Windows XP installations show a peculiar defect in that some systray icons disappear or, rather, do not appear, when the system is booted and the user logs on. The problem is even more prevalent on systems with autologon. The most frequently affected icons seem to be the speaker icon (sound volume) and the power/energy icon.
This has nothing to do with the hide inactive icons settings. The defect shows up when you don't have any icons set for hiding.
In any case, please make sure for now that you haven't activated that setting. Right-click the task bar, click on Properties, uncheck the last check box. You can reactivate it later if all other problems are identified or solved.
Check your Startup folder and the starter registry entries through Start, Run..., type: msconfig, press Enter, to check whether the programs are really started at system start, or use Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) to see whether the processes are running.
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