Taskbar does not Auto-hide all the time Windows 7

I solved this Auto-Hide problem on my laptop Thanks to Bernard46. I have a new hard drive, first time install of windows 7 professional 64bit, only one program installed (adobe after effects) and never used the internet except for windows updates. This is definitely a MS windows problem for me.

My task bar shows an MS icon that looks like a flag, which is the Solve PC Issues icon. When I left clicked the icon it said that I have 2 messages. I left clicked the first message (Change Windows Update Settings) which led me to some screens that asked me how I wanted to handle updates. I followed the screens and made my selection(always ask me) then hit OK.

The task bar instantly went into Auto-Hide. Problem solved ( at least for now :)

yes, I have met the same problem. And you got the key! the keyword is adobe product in your case, as the same in my case. there is an automatic update from adobe, if you ( I ) ignored this update reminder, the taskbar will never autohide. As you said, it will autohide once you have solved the automatic update reminder, for instance, from adobe.

check the updating messages on the taskbar, problem will be solved. It worked in my computer, hope this exp can help you all.

Regards,

The following is not a solution for taskbar autohide option but you will be able to continue working on whatever you are focused without the taskbar being a problem. The original reason for my using this solution is that I keep a 3rd party freeware program called Powerpro running for launching programs which is basicly a button bar that I have positioned along bottom of screen and I keep the taskbar hidden to give myself more screen real estate.

I use another 3rd party freeware program called Winsplit Revolution available http://www.winsplit-revolution.com/features here. This program does everything that Snap does plus some other neat stuff but it works on XP and Vista as well which means its a 32 bit program so using the mouse to drag windows to edges of screen does not work perfectly in Win 7 yet. Winsplit is mostly controlled from keyboard ctrl+alt+a numpad key or a vitual pad window (for use on laptops that don't have numpad) that has 9 buttons with arrows that point toward area of screen that window will end up. As an example ctrl+alt+numpad3 will send window to upper right corner of screen as will the top right most button on virtual pad (very intuitive layout) and there is a help page on website so it takes about 10 secs to learn all this. Snap also has some methods for being invoked by keyoard but I can't remember them.

So why use Winsplit? When started first time Winsplits options have it set to run on startup which places an icon in the system tray right-clicking on icon brings up a menu with several items for setting the program up to operate the way you want it to. Options menu item is used to set behavior of the virtual pad check for web updates and several other things. Another menu item allows you to change hotkeys that are used to invoke window movement so laptop users could setup the keys to correspnd to wer asd zxc? arrangement. The next menu item I will dscribe is the most important because it allow you customize the layout. The default layout is the same as Snap with the following exception, using winsplit key combinations repeatedly will cycle and loop thru as many assignments as you have on the key combination (as an example ctrl+alt+numpad6 cycles thru right half of screen, right third of screen, right 2 thirds of screen). When you invoke the layout menu option a window comes up that has in the upper half the customizations with buttons to add edit or delete layout assignments and lower half has preview of the screen location.

Customizing a key-combo pops up another window with x: (left starting point %)(y: top starting point %)(width: %)(height:%). Working with percentages is a bit unusual but you will probably only have to set it up once. I have found that if I set the percentages for height at 98.3% for verticle layouts and for horizontal layout the total adding up to 98.3% it uncovers the area which is taken up by taskbar when it pops up (so if the taskbar does decide not to hide the only thing it covers up is the Powerpro launch bar I have at bottom of screen).

If you look at Hotkey setup you will also see several other useful hotkey ctrl+alt combinations:

ctrl+alt+numpad0 saves location of active windows so that you can send a window to a default location that you like.

ctrl+alt+m does the same thing as Snap stack windows tiles all windows on screen it will allow taskbar to be covered and is not customizable

ctrl+alt+f does a vertical tile of last 2 active windows

ctrl+alt+c closes all windows

ctrl+alt+left arrow/right arrow moves window to other monitors

ctrl+alt+page down minimizes window

ctrl+alt+page up maximizes window

ctrl+alt+t brings up tool window which allows you to control if a window is always on top can enable and set transparancy for the whole window not just titlebar

and gives you the option to save a screenshot to a file or to clipboard

Altogether I find this program a very well thought out and useful tool.

Enjoy

I FIXED THIS ISSUE by going into my system tray; turns out one of them was, and had been but only just now been making a nuisance of itself, been waiting for me to do something about the flash drive that's been in the usb for about a month.  Go into hidden icons and make sure that nothing else is doing something similar.