Taskbar will not hide in XP.

[elkinm]

I like to hide the taskbar for more screen space and so I don't have the bar visible at all times.

It hides fine at first but after a short time I close a program or do something and it does not like it and the taskbar will not hide anymore.

I just deleted and entry I did not want from quick launch and now the taskbar will not hide.

No programs that I can see at least are running so I don't know what is holding the taskbar up. In Win 98 sometimes a program with a blank name existed with caused similar problems and at shut down you see the program is not responding dialog with no program name.

I don't know if there is a way to find a hidden lost program, but I see no sign of one.

The only way I get the taskbar to be normal again is to kill explorer.exe which usually looses some icons by the clock as well as mess up any currently open windows so I don't like killing explorer.

This problem is happening very often for some reason nearly once a day and the taskbar will not hide and the system will run fine for days if I don't kill explorer or reboot.

Is there any way to force hide the taskbar even if something other then the mouse is causing it to show, or some way to find what is keeping it from hiding.

Thanks

 

[Matthias99]

Well, you can just drag the taskbar all the way down (it clicks one more 'line' below the normal height, which collapses it completely), and just drag it back up when you want it visible.

Probably the easiest solution, although less convenient than the auto-popup.

Is the 'auto-hide the taskbar' setting actually getting turned off? If not, does flipping the state of that setting fix the problem?

 

[elkinm]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
Well, you can just drag the taskbar all the way down (it clicks one more 'line' below the normal height, which collapses it completely), and just drag it back up when you want it visible.

Probably the easiest solution, although less convenient than the auto-popup.

Is the 'auto-hide the taskbar' setting actually getting turned off? If not, does flipping the state of that setting fix the problem?

Thanks, I know I can just collapse it but doing that all the time is very annoying and not nearly the same as having a working auto-hide.

And I have tried disabling and re-enabling the auto-hide feature which I think usually worked in Win 98 but in XP the taskbar hides right after I re-enable auto but when I go down to it unhide and never hides again.

 

[Hacp]

I just disable (Fully hide) the taskbar and use stardock... Easier to actually see when you have 10+ apps running.

 

[elkinm]

Originally posted by: Hacp
I just disable (Fully hide) the taskbar and use stardock... Easier to actually see when you have 10+ apps running.

Stardock?

 

[elkinm]

With Stardock which program simulates the Start menu. I cannot find a program called stardock. I don't want to change the look of my desktop I just want a simple fast working desktop and taskbar.

Thanks

 

[Goi]

I get the same problem sometimes, although not as often as you make it to sound. It seems to be just a bug with windows. It drives me nuts too. What I do is shut explorer.exe down with task manager and restart it. Some of the icons on your task bar might be missing after the restart, but the applications themselves are still running. If that bugs you too you can shut them down and restart them with task manager. It's the easiest "solution" I've found without restarting windows. I'd like to know if there's another solution as well.

Edit: Didn't fully read your post. Seems like we've figured out the same solution, lol

 

[Hacp]

http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/

I know, copy mac blah blah. I didn't beleive I needed it until I actually tried it. Way better than the windows task bar. Also, if you want to go to start menu, just click the windows keyboard thing. It will still pop up.

It can hide and if you want to activate it, just go to the edge of the screen.