Why is Windows auto hide taskbar still frustrating after 20+ years?

[ControlD]

Really? Moments ago I stepped up to my mother's unattended Mac, paused the news stream she had left running in a Chrome window that was only using a quarter of the screen, and moved down to the center of the bottom of the screen. I waited a second and got nothing. I moved a little back and forth trending a little right of center then waited another second and nothing. I moved a little back and forth trending a little left of center then waited another second. Just as I was giving up and moving away it finally sprang up. The sad part is that it would have been visible the entire time if it were not set to auto-hide.

I have had similar issues on our two Macs at home. I have given up on taskbar auto hide with both platforms.

 

[pmv]

Just upgraded to '10', so don't know yet how that is, but agree that under '7' the task bar never seemed to work right. Either it would fail to auto-hide, or it would fail to always stay on top, despite being told to do so.

It seemed to be one of three annoying bugs that never got fixed in '7' (the other two being the tendency to decide folders and usb devices were 'in use' when they weren't, and the failure of save/load file dialogs to remember the directory you last used)

 

[CZroe]

I have had similar issues on our two Macs at home. I have given up on taskbar auto hide with both platforms.

My mother just complained about this last night. She asked me why sometimes "the thing" (dock) doesn't appear when you do everything like you are supposed to do.

 

[LPCTech]

Why bother. It takes up one centimeter of the bottom of the screen and goes away when you fullscreen anything...

 

[CZroe]

Why bother. It takes up one centimeter of the bottom of the screen and goes away when you fullscreen anything...

On the Mac? Because it was causing burn-in. On my notebook? I usually don't but even that 1CM very often makes things way too difficult on my 11.6" notebook.

 

[Dude111]

I've always wanted my taskbar to auto-hide. In 20+ years, I've never had it enabled for more than 1 or 2 days. The feature causes frustration due to inconsistent behavior.

Hmmm Im on Win98se and I tried setting it to AUTO-HIDE just now and it seems to work fine... When I open an application it comes up for a few seconds then drops.....


What exactly dont ya like bud?

 

[Ichinisan]

Hmmm Im on Win98se and I tried setting it to AUTO-HIDE just now and it seems to work fine... When I open an application is comes up for a few seconds then drops.....


What exactly dont ya like bud?

It works fine...until it doesn't.

 

[Dude111]

Ya maybe.......... I dont ever have it enabled.. (I always keep the bar showing)


Hmmmmmm

 

[John Sibley]

Dude, 100% agreement here. You can be sure there isn't a damn thing wrong with your PC, this problem is way too widespread to be that simple. This is just another dog sh** "feature" from mircosoft that simply doesn't work (news flash). As you already know, this crap has been happening with Windows OS's for God only knows how long now. Boy I sure wish I had a global business that could release an un-finished shit product to the public, then fix what I want when I feel like it... If they can't make the garbage work then simply don't put it in the OS, or how about finishing your damn software.

 

[Red Squirrel]

On sorta similar subject, anyone find it annoying how the "pinned" items in the task bar work in windows 7? In any other OS, those items simply act as shortuts, you put them off the the side where the start menu is, you click it, it opens an instance of that program, and you get a task bar entry, the icon stays there. But in win7, it actually converts the icon into a task bar entry, then the other items get pushed with it. So you end up with a mixture of currently running programs, and shortcuts, all mixed in throughout the task bar. To me this is piss poor design and that should have never made it past internal alpha. It's minor, but still a awkward thing UI wise. Not sure if the same happens in 8 or 10.

 

[mikeymikec]

On customers' computers I try my very best to avoid changing irritating user preferences even temporarily (for fear I'll forget to switch the setting back), but taskbar auto-hide has to be one of the most irritating features out there, that or perhaps a stupid custom sound sample every time one navigates in Windows Explorer.

One thing I've changed though is that on Win7 in particular I always had the small taskbar set to maximise desktop space, and recently I've found that I want to know the date quickly more often (which on small taskbar requires one to mouseover the clock). For a handful of pixels in height though the desktop space does seem noticeably smaller / squashed-looking.