Taskbar does not Auto-hide all the time Windows 7

**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!

I think the big problem in this situation is realizing what kinds of alerts are available and how to get rid of them. There is actually a simple procedure for managing the kinds of notifications you prefer to be alerted by.

1. Right-click on an empty space on your taskbar
2. Select "Customize Notifications"
3. In the window that appears you'll be able to choose the behavior of the icons just to the left of the clock on your taskbar
4. Don't worry about hiding the icons, you can always reveal them with a quick click on the double arrow symbol in the same area. If you hover over this symbol a small box will appear which reads- "Show hidden icons"

You may also find, as I did, that the culprit was the action center notification (the little white flag). I had turned off my antivirus for a specific reason and the action center flag was covered by a small red circular "x" symbol; this is used to indicate an issue needs resolving in the action center.

You can specify in greater detail the reasons the action center icon notifies you by following these steps:

1. Right-click on the action center flag icon
2. Select "Open Action Center"
3. Now you'll see a series of drop down arrows
4. Click the drop down arrow of your choosing (because my problem was related to virus software I chose Security
5. Click on the blue text to turn each of those options on or off

WARNING! If you choose to stop notifications for virus software and firewall you may be putting your computer at risk! Please take every precaution to ensure you know the repercussion of your selections.

1. You should see a number of different options

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.

it seems working after i downloaded MSE.

thank you  very much!

 

Regards,

Shinmila H - Microsoft Support

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I had the very same problem, it turns out it was some uninstalled Windows Updates.  Once I ran them, the problem went away.