Windows 11 22H2 New Volume/Brightness Level Indicator completely gone

22H2 is an optional update, not a critical update

I'm not using 22H2 on this desktop and I have no 'brightness indicator in the middle of the screen

Hi there! My name is, Zadee. I'm an Independent Advisor and a Microsoft user like you. Sorry to hear about your experience. I'll try my best to help you today.

Please try these steps.

1. Win + R to open the run box
2. Type: devmgmt.msc

I don’t think you understood the issue. It is the Windows flyouts that no longer show - which doesn’t have anything to do with their drivers - it is part of Windows. For example, I increase the volume with my keyboard and a flyout shows on screen showing the volume level. Same for brightness. These are what no longer show as of yesterday.

I just tested this with 22h2 fully up-to-date as of today (possibly with a preview update still) and its showing up fine. Its difficult to actually say what the issue is and its not necessarily Windows.

It could be just as possible that your keyboard driver or firmware has the issue. If you're only testing it with the keyboard controls then I'd suggest that you should try with something else if you have something else that could like extra mouse buttons.

I tested with AutoHotkey v2 and the following script that I made. It will side step the keyboard firmware and driver and use other keys in the event there's something going on with the keys you use. It might also diverge in how it goes about it. This uses scroll lock and pause keys:

#Requires AutoHotkey v2.0
ScrollLock::Send "{Volume_Down 5}"
Pause::Send "{Volume_Up 5}"

Additional: If that keyboard is Bluetooth then the following may be a issue which is fixed in KB5022913. https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/topic/february-28-2023-kb5022913-os-build-22621-1344-preview-3e38c0d9-924d-4f3f-b0b6-3bd49b2657b9

"This update addresses an issue that affects the user interface (UI). The volume up and volume down commands from a Bluetooth keyboard do not display."

Thanks for clarifying that for me. It could still be something with the keyboard driver, it might still be worth a shot to reinstall those through the device manager. I have the latest update (KB5022913) and the vol and brightness flyouts still work on my end.

Turns out the issue was Explorer Patcher... either it or the recent Windows Update made something incompatible with the two where the flyouts no longer show. Uninstalling Explorer Patcher brings the flyouts back.

Thing is ... the whole reason I installed Explorer Patcher was so I could ungroup and label the taskbar icons. So, with that uninstalled, now I am back to Windows 11's taskbar where they are always grouped and with no labels. I waste soooo much time hovering over the icons then trying to figure out which of the tiny previews I actually want to click. One of the dumbest ideas MS has had in a long time... not productive AT ALL... at least give us the option to ungroup and show labels if we want to.

Great work. I guess that tool would need to update to a newer version to properly work with the latest version of Windows.

I understand how limiting the taskbar functions/features are. IMO Win 10 taskbar was so much better because of its flexibility. All functions that I can do with 10 taskbar are now gone in 11. There are even reports now that reg hacks that allow users to make taskbar bigger are no longer working. Maybe this creates a lot of trouble with other functions in 11, that's why MS engineers are limiting these features at the moment. I'm sure MS still trying to improve things 11, you can share your ideas with them as well through the feedback hub. That's pretty much what we can do, for now, send feedback to them about how we feel about these features. Hopefully, they listen and implement user-suggested feedback so everybody wins.

Guide here:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/sen...

Have a wonderful day/evening!