Toolbars I put on the Task Bar disappear with each restart

Anonymous

I just recently installed Windows 8.1, and as soon as I finished the upgrade, and ever since, I have had this problem. Any custom toolbars I put on the Task Bar disappear whenever I restart. For quite some time now (since Win ME, I think), I have used custom toolbars for My Computer (now called This PC in 8.1) and my Favorites, or Links within my user profile (not to be confused with my Internet favorites). Having those has been extremely handy as it allows me to view and access any of my drives quickly, and open folders I frequently access with one click. I think it was starting in Vista that toolbars had to be located on the Task Bar rather than being on some other side of the screen (I put my custom toolbars on the left side, and appropriately called it my sidebar). Having those toolbars limited to the Task Bar was no real problem, I just had to get used to my Task Bar being larger.

My current computer has had Win 8 installed from the beginning (I installed it myself using a clean install, not an upgrade). When I upgraded to 8.1, I was able to add those toolbars to my Task Bar no problem (right-click Task Bar >Toolbars >New Toolbar... and I select the folder I want to use for the toolbar), but every time I restart or shut down/turn on my computer, the custom toolbars disappear, leaving only the regular Task Bar and the Language Bar (I customarily keep the Language Bar on to be able to switch between typing English and Japanese, so I'm quite glad that at least it doesn't disappear). If I enable any of the toolbars already on the list in the Toolbars menu, they also disappear with each restart (such as Address and Bing Desktop; not that I use them, I'm just saying this to make diagnosis easier).

Granted, this is not a seriously harmful issue, as I am always able to put the toolbars back on again after each restart, and I don't restart ALL the time. But it's a major annoyance and it hurts productivity. Is there some way I can fix this problem? Or is there some update I can apply to do so?

Ethan Hayes

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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78 answers

Anonymous

2015-02-05T22:36:00+00:00

I've spent 20 min reading the entire thread and tried several things but I'm still having an issue that may indeed be different... 1) I add a custom toolbar (folder with programs, etc. in it), 2) I change my taskbar to be 2 rows in height, 3) I drag my toolbar to the bottom row so my taskbar icons can occupy the top row, 4) I lock "all taskbars", 5) I reboot, 6) my toolbar appears but squashed over to the right near the tray and all of my sequence settings for that toolbar content are reset to alpha sorted. I have done the save.bat and restore.bat but that doesn't fix this. It doesn't seem to matter if I'm using one, two, or three monitors or whether I have the taskbar extended fully to all or apply tasks to only the monitor they are running on. Nuts. Anyone else with this?
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Anonymous

2015-02-03T13:28:18+00:00

I've had this problem on several different windows 7 & 8 & 8.1 computers for the past few years.

I keep looking for answers and apparently there are lots of bad ideas that simply don't work.

There a few basic flaws in Windows that seem to continue over the years and may never be solved!

Even though none of the "fixes" other users have put forth (registry tweaks, etc.) have worked for me either, I don't consider most of them as 'bad ideas'.... just things which don't solve the issue. Some of them should solve the issue, being pretty solid registry tweaks, but, for some weird reason just do not.

So far, creating a couple of .bat files to quickly backup/restore the toolbars is the way to go. At the least, it saves you some time and effort. Hopefully, the folks in Redmond will consider it important enough to fix it with an update. I'd say most of them are busy dealing with bigger issues, like Cortana, Windows 10 TP, etc.
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Anonymous

2015-02-03T01:04:07+00:00

I've had this problem on several different windows 7 & 8 & 8.1 computers for the past few years.

I keep looking for answers and apparently there are lots of bad ideas that simply don't work.

There a few basic flaws in Windows that seem to continue over the years and may never be solved!
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Anonymous

2015-01-23T19:24:15+00:00
I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate x64. Have been having the same issue for a while.

I have custom toolbars which point to shortcuts, each in a separate folder stashed in ProgramData, for Taskmanager, Lock, Restart, Shutdown.... (all of them saving me a couple of extra clicks for those functions)

Losing my custom toolbars at random, after reboots or shutdowns, is a pain in the rear. I've tried all of the different registry tricks designed to make them stay put...none of them have worked.

The only "solution" I've personally found is to backup my custom toolbars and restore them, using a couple of .bat files I've made. Then, whenever I log into my computer and find that my toolbars have disappeared, I just double-click my "Restore-Taskbar_Toolbars.bat" and they're instantly back.

I found the original backup/restore tutorial **Here**at Windows SevenForums, written by Shawn Brink.

My customized .bat files, however, unlike the ones you can download from SevenForums, create the " Taskbar-Toolbars-Backup" directory in your system's ProgramData folder instead of on your desktop....Thataway, you can just keep the .bat files in that same folder, backup and restore from it too, without needing to drag the folder to your desktop each time.

* Since ProgramData is a normally hidden folder, you'll need to un-hide it via the 'Folder Options' menu in your Control Panel. Under the 'View' tab, put a tick in the "Show hidden files, folders, and drives" option.
1. Download my custom .bat files HERE.****Save them to your desktop.
2. Unlock the taskbar. Get your custom toolbars set up the way you want them to be. Lock the taskbar.
3. Double-click the Backup-Taskbar_Toolbars.bat
4. Open your ProgramData folder and look for the new Taskbar-Toolbars-Backup directory. Open it and ensure that the Taskbar-Toolbars-Backup.reg file is inside.
5. Move both the Backup-Taskbar_Toolbars.bat and the Restore-Taskbar_Toolbars.bat files into that same folder. From now on you can launch either from there.
6. Next time your toolbars disappear, just open that directory and double-click the Restore-Taskbar_Toolbars.bat. And each time you re-arange or change or add to your toolbars, delete the previous Taskbar-Toolbars-Backup.reg and run the Backup-Taskbar_Toolbars.bat, which will create a new backup registry file.
* No, it's not a "solution" to the disappearing toolbars bug, but it saves a bit of time & effort, especially if you have 3 or more toolbars and lots of shortcuts in them.

* Thanks to Shawn Brink @Windows SevenForums for the tutorial.
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Anonymous

2015-01-21T09:16:36+00:00

I renamed all my icons in numerical order. When it reorders, it goes in alphabetical order, so I added numbers in front of them in the order I like. So, I have 1 Word, 2 Excel, 3 Photoshop, 4 Premiere, etc. They come back in order every time.
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