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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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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
    2011-11-30T01:14:56+00:00

    Tried this one to.  No luck.

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-11-30T13:25:18+00:00

    Thank you for visiting the Microsoft Windows Community site. In an effort to focus more attention on your particular situation create a new thread here.  This will mitigate confusion caused by more than one posting about similar   topics, allowing us to focus on each customer individually

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-11-30T20:42:54+00:00

    Thank you, JARDENNIS. At least for the moment, this seems to have resolved the issue described.

    I not sure why the Flash Installer (flash10x was my previous version, btw) didn't show anywhere prior to restarting explorer.

    I am also not sure if this will happen again come next Flash update.

    As a general note for anyone who may have experienced this symptom due to another reason, I have noticed that the following are typical causes that the task bar auto-unhides:

    • A modal window (i.e. modal dialog box) initiated from a running task. The task that initiated this may sometimes flash on the taskbar*.* Check the taskbar and see if you find a flashing task. If so, then switch to that task and deal with the dialog box in order to make the task-bar auto-hide again.
    • A modal window initiated by Windows Explorer. This is often (but not always) the result of an error MS Windows has encountered. In some cases a flashing task appears on the task bar for this special dialogue box.
    • Some system tray notifications, initiated by the running system tray task. Note that you may or may not see a notification "bubble" that accompanies a notification.  You may not even see the system tray change in any way -- noticeable or otherwise.  If you have any system tray icons that you have opted to always show (via "Show icon and notifications"), then you may have to click on each one of them to see if any of them require attention.

    In this case, absolutely none of the above was evident.

    I don't think that the folks at Microsoft realize just how debilitating it is to have a taskbar that does not auto-hide properly.  When you chose NOT to auto-hide the taskbar, the bottoms of all windows hover above the taskbar.  When you have chosen to auto-hide the taskbar, though, the bottoms of your windows may be covered by an errant taskbar.

    All maximized windows (and some others) have their status bar and horizontal scrollbar covered, and the only way to access them is to "restore" the window -- which usually also means re-sizing it. The same applies to any downloads in Internet Explorer -- restore and resize. What a pain!

    If Microsoft did realize what was going on here, then they would probably have offered a solution besides posting a form-letter "check for viruses" response that appears in this thread several times.

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