Task bar won't come out of hiding

Running XP Home SP2.

I have my task bar set to auto hide, always on top and locked. I've be having a problem with the task bar not showing when I have a window maximized. If I restore down the window the task bar will then come up. In addition, sometimes I can't get the task bar to go into hiding. When this happens I have to open the task bar properties, unclick the auto hide, click apply and then click auto hide and apply to get the task bar to go away.

I searched MS articles for this problem but found nothing (not surprising for me) about this problem. Could it only be me????

 

I didn't mention that I have the task bar set to two lines and when it won't go into hiding and I uncheck auto hide and then check it again it goes to a single line. FWIW

 

Is anybody there?

I wanted to "open" this problem again cuz I still have the problem. Actually I forgot I had created this thread and was searching for solutions to the problem when I ran across this.

I've also noticed that sometimes when I place the cursor over an icon in the system tray the name of the program is displayed behind the task bar so you can't read it.

Ideas anyone

 

Hi Jim. Sorry no one took a shot at this one the first time but it may have just been too confusing. For instance, you say SP2 but that one is just barely out of Beta testing and not released yet. In fact, I think the beta was only made available in January, 2004.

"If I restore down the window the task bar will then come up "

No idea what this one means.

Have you tried start~run~sfc /scannow? You won't see much while it runs but it fixes quite a few odd problems. Note the space between sfc and /.

 

Might worth a shot to try both #298 and #321 from here ?

 

Daizy, thanks for the direction. I've taken the appropriate registry "fixes" and installed them and will see what happens As always, it's nice to read your words.....

Newt, I see what you mean.... I must have fat fingered SP2 when I should have input SP1.... Can't blame anyone for not answering me for that blunder! Concerning the "restore down" comment. I was trying to find the right words to indicate make the window smaller (from maximized size) by clicking the center box in the upper right corner. I saw that term used somewhere else so assumed it was the proper terminology. What is the right terminology to "make your page smaller?.?.?." it isn't minimize as that hides it..... maybe un-maximize?

 

Hiya Jim78418
Got my fingers crossed for ya. Let us know how it works out. Take a gander through that whole page when you have time. Heaps of good stuff there.

 

2 days now Jim78418 . And the verdict is???

 

I loaded to the registry what I thought was pertinant for this problem. Got a little side tracked and didn't reboot until this morning and when I did the colors on my computer were reduced from 256 (I think it was) to 4 Luckily I had made a restore point before messing with the registry and was able to recover with little effort.

Have not had enough time to redo the inspection and detection of the url you pointed to. Will do that later this week as time permits. I also did what Newt suggested with the SFC /scannow. I understand how that works but it never tells you if it found anything out of order so don't know if that helped or not. So far I haven't experienced my problem but with all the rebooting I've been doing the computer has pretty fresh brains loaded

Will update later this week. Thanks.....

 

Jim - normally sfc actions (if any files were altered/replaced) will give you an event log entry.

 

Jim78418.

"set to auto hide, always on top and locked "

I'm confused. Why locked? Seems to me hide and always on top are contradictory settings. Mine is auto hide only, and works fine; the windows key brings it up in a full-screen program.

 

Hi Sparrow, I lock the taskbar so I don't accidently move it. As far as Auto-hide and Keep on Top, these are different and not contradictory. Auto-hide allows the task bar to dissapear when not needed and the Keep on Top will make it appear on top of any open windows when you move your cursor to the task bar location. Hope this is clear....

Newt, what is the name of the log file that is created by SFC /scannow? I did a generic search for "log" and found so many log files that I'm surprised my HD isn't full. Also, what do you call it when you select the middle box in the upper right corner of a maximized window? I'm referring to what I called "restore down" in my original post in this thread.

I'll be out the rest of the day

 

Hi Jim78418,

Thanks. Fortunately, I still have a lot to learn.

I always "restore down" windows that open full screen with the keyboard alt-spacebar>r.

I have had your problem of windows forgetting settings, and also not remembering settings until I have reset them several times, particularly using lists in explorer instead of the large icons. It reminds me of training a dog. I'll be following this thread with interest.

 

Jim, you actually have worded it correctly. Restore down is making the window smaller by clicking the double squared box. Hover on it a sec and see what it says, if you have popup description enabled.

I think Newt was referring to an entry in the event viewer.

 

Yup. Event viewer is where lots of system bits place info, warnings, errors. And like most other XP things, there are a bunch of ways to get to your event viewer (3 of them created by default; system, security, application).

start~run~eventvwr.exe is probably the quickest.

right-click My Computer then Manage and it's a selection under system tools.

Control panel offers a way to get there as well but I never use it and don't remember exactly where/how. I suspect there are one or two other ways as well.

 

As I understand the "Lock Toolbar" function:

It locks the taskbar at it's current position. This may be in conflict with autohide which moves the taskbar position down.

I know when it is shown (as opposed to autohidden) and locked you cannot move this baby up...down or anywhere.

These two options may be fighting each other or at best confusing windows and causing a lag or odd taskbar response while it trys to figure out if it should move or stay put.

Experimently, why not remove the "Lock" option and see if this takes care of your problem.

I don't seem to have a problem with both options enabled but you never know. Each system is different.

It seems to me this was an old win98 or win95 nuisance also and it was the two conflicting options that caused the problem. Could be wrong but it's easy enough to test....

===
Your display settings such as font and or icon size could be causing a problem. Another thought off the top of my head.

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Using any Xmouse thingy (setting). Maybe a bug??? Just a long shot thought.
--
I'm going way out in left field now.... Powertoys_tweakui_ "Hover Sensitivity ", not real sure if this is just for popup messages but tweakui has a tweaker for this in the mouse section.
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MenuShowDelay....wonder if this option would help:
Menu Display - Speed Up

Start/Run/Regedit
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop In the right pane select, "MenuShowDelay ". Right click, modify and set the value to 0. Reboot.

OR TweakUI/Mouse/Menu Speed/Move glider to fast/Reboot.
I don't think this defaults to a "0" value though.

 

Control panel>administrative tools>Event Viewer

 

Thanks jusbouthadit. I figured there was a way but was too dang lazy to look around.

 

So far my task bar is behaving so I guess I'll sit back and see if it continues to behave.

What I've done is installed registry tweek #321 that Daizy suggested to fix icon descriptions showing under the taskbar and I've turned "Lock the Taskbar" off per Ann's suggestion (Goddez1).

I will post back to this thread to advise if the problem is resolved or not. Many thanks to those who took of their time to help me.... much appreciated.

 

There seems to be some confusion about "lock the taskbar ". This is simply a handy feature introduced with XP (at least, I don't remember it in 2000. Actually, may have been a feature of IE 6 ) that allows you to lock the individual toolbars on the taskbar. All it does is remove the "drag area" which allows you to slide the various toolbars back and forth, making them longer or shorter. If I remember correctly, WinXp defaults to this setting, so some of you posting that this might be the problem, probably have your toolbars locked w/o even knowing it (ever wonder why you couldn't resize that quicklaunch bar?). Locking the taskbar does not mean "locking it in place ". It means locking the sub-toolbars in place and should have no effect on auto-hide

Jim, some programs have the annoying habit of overriding the taskbar when they're minimized. For example, iTunes and Napster both stay on top, even over the taskbar, when they're minimized. You might check for this. If your problem occurs w/ certain programs, this is likely the problem. The answer? Don't maximize I have Naptster in "restore down" mode but have dragged the edges all the way out so it appears maximized, but doesn't actually override the taskbar. This really is an annoying issue but, to be honest, I think it's sloppy coding on the third-party programmer's part. They simply didn't consider that some of us set the taskbar to auto-hide in an attempt to maximize screen real estate

PS Jim, I have my taskbar "double-sized" (even have the quicklaunch set for "large icons ") and I have no trouble, so this is likely not your problem (and I doubt the locking is either)... hope you get things fixed