Taskbar does not Auto-hide all the time Windows 7

Anonymous

**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!

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

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

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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437 additional answers

Anonymous

2011-08-12T09:25:07+00:00

Thank's for the link Adam. That lil program works like a charm. It's just too bad Microsoft (like so many other software developers) doesn't fix their annoying bugs when they are affecting so many users. It's nice to know that some clever programmers like Nicolaj have our back.
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Anonymous

2011-08-09T18:36:04+00:00

I also found this which seems to explain what Shinmila H couldn't, why this happens.

And yes, i tried this solution, and it worked like a charm.

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

I really hope this helped.

I've been fighting this for about a week now, since booting up the "spare," a newer PC than my work computer (which went to HP for repairs). Finally found this thread and tried nicolaj82's fix for the taskbar. Like he said, worked like a charm!! Taskbar Slapper is the name of the program. lol

Since Microsoft won't get off their butts to fix this... after TWO YEARS... you might try installing this very small program from its Rapidshare location. You'll be working properly within just a few minutes!

Thanks to nicolaj82 for coming up with an answer after MS failed. Again.

Just keep bumping this and we'll all be in good shape... without "assistance" from Microsoft.
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Anonymous

2011-08-06T02:12:03+00:00

Also, what I've found is that if you hit the customize button for the notifications, you can change the behaviors of the all the programs. You can then change the behaviors to hide the notifications. If you want to get to the root of the problem, you can change programs one at a time until you figure out the one causing the problem.
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