Topic: Totalmix and Settings sometimes disappear from task bar in Windows 10
Having recently suffered again from Totalmix and Settings not launching on startup and therefore disappearing from the task bar (system tray), I decided to troubleshoot this in more detail, as a brief reference for anyone suffering from the same issue. This is probably an entirely Windows related issue and I'm not sure why/how this happens periodically.
The following is how I made things go back to normal:
1) I located the apps on the C: system partition. The apps are located in Windows /System 32 as TotalMixFX.exe and firefaceusb.exe.
2) I copied shortcuts to each of these apps to the startup folder:
C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
After doing this the app icons appear as normal in the hidden taskbar when I start the computer. And Totalmix appears automatically when I switch on the Fireface UC. I'm hoping this is a definitive solution. (I've suffered oddities in this regard over several years and when it happens it can be rather frustrating... and it's all too easy to forget how to troubleshoot this).