Taskbar does not Auto-hide all the time Windows 7

Anonymous
2009-11-21T17:32:06+00:00

**Original Title**Windows 7 taskbar won't consistantly autohide. After changing the properties to Autohide and clicking 'OK', it hides for a brief second then reappears. Other times it autohides as desired.

My taskbar autohide behaves in an erratic pattern.  When I have an alert, it autohides after resolving the alert, but other times it refuses to go away, even if I, once again, open the properties, uncheck autohide, recheck autohide, then click 'apply' and/or 'OK'. As I type this, the taskbar stubbornly remains!

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

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Anonymous
2010-03-29T18:26:16+00:00

In the "good old days" applicaitons would often un-hide the Taskbar so their notification icons could show an updated status and they could ensure it would be seen.  I think this method has fallen out of favor, but older applications that haven't been updated could still be sending the commands to the system to show the Taskbar.  Is it possible that you have an older app in the notification area that's affecting the Taskbar as described?

What notification area icons do you have (and what versions)?

For what it's worth, I just tried disabling Avast Pro 5.0 and it still allowed the Taskbar to auto-hide.

-Noel

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Anonymous
2009-11-22T15:00:10+00:00

Hi Lamargene,

Welcome to Microsoft Answers.

See that “Lock the Taskbar” is not enabled. If it is, you may disable it by right-clicking on taskbar and unchecking it.

Still the same behavior?

If such is the case, I’d recommend you to download Microsoft Security Essentials on your computer. This will make sure that any virus, spyware or other malicious software on the computer is wiped out completely. Also if the weird behavior is due to any one of those, running the essentials will fix it.

Download it from

http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

Do you see any changes after running the essentials? Post back and let us know.

Regards,

Shinmila H - Microsoft Support

Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forumand let us know what you think

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-05-26T08:46:08+00:00

    Sign me up for the same problem, and it's actually quite annoying, but i did find solutions on another forum posting the same issue, and a guy came up with this.

    Often times Windows will refuse to hide because it mistakenly believes there is still a tooltip balloon open. (I see this a lot myself with APC's Powerchute Personal Edition.) Unfortunately the only way to get your taskbar to properly hide again (and I don't mean uncheck the "Keep the taskbar ontop of other widows" option for a quick fix) is to restart the machine so that Windows resets the tooltip balloon status. What a pain!

    Thankfully through my inability to let it go and hatred for this problem I have written a file that will fix this! (Works great on my Vista machine!) All the program does is overwrite the phantom tooltip balloon and then clear the tooltip balloon and Tahdah!

    The tooltip will stay up for 10 seconds so that you can read the info on it (just telling you what it does and how you can contact me if you have any problems). You can close this tooltip balloon like any other by clicking on it, or if you mouse over the program tray icon it will close itself instantly.

    http://www.multiupload.com/94SQZ50YK0

    And here is a pic of how it looks in action.

    http://i44.tinypic.com/1hzzn.jpg

    I really hope this helped.

    DOES ANYONE STILL HAS THE BINARIES?? PRETTY PLEASE?? THIS GUY IS THE ONLY ONE THAT CAME CLOSE TO SOLVING THIS **** AUTO-HIDE PROBLEM. AND NO, I WON'T RESTART EXPLORER PROCESS...!!

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-05-21T14:01:15+00:00

    Thanks for the clue.  I was going potty trying to work out what had changed.  At almost the same time I had Firefox not allowing me to answer or create new hotmail emails which worked fine in I.E.

    Like most folks with a little knowledge I was starting to edge towards making full system scans and checking that live protection was on etc, etc

    However, I had installed FileZilla a week or so ago, so just on the off chance I unpinned it from the taskbar and there you go, back with a functional bar.

    It may be greatest coincidence but my hotmail now works in Firefox again.

    Scary isn't it?

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-04-27T19:41:23+00:00

    After reading (some) of these 37 pages I am happy to announce that I have solved this 6 years old issue (at least for me)!!! I want a medal of honor from Microsoft.

    So first the bug; from time to time the taskbar does not auto-hide, and there is no other solution but to restart windows. When does that happen? When an usb drive has been nastily removed, without clicking on the "Safely remove hardware" icon in the notification area. The drive is gone and the icon is gone with it, but it must still be crying for attention somewhere as it prevents the taskbar to hide. It is 100% reproducible.

    How to get rid of that annoying behavior? Click on taskbar notification area arrow, customize, in the window that appears look for the “windows explorer / safely remove hardware and eject media” (an usb connector with a green tick mark icon) and select hide icon and notification. Et voila! You can continue to unsafely remove your usb drives without messing up the taskbar.

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