Toolbars I put on the Task Bar disappear with each restart

Anonymous
2013-10-30T18:34:15+00:00

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

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-10-31T20:53:14+00:00

    To summarize - this is a hardcoded glitch between explorer and the language bar that rewrites the taskbar string in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Streams\Desktop with a default.

    Did More Digging on my Surface Pro 3 also running 1709 - It is fine!  The Quicklaunch works properly because the language bar isn't a language bar  - it is in the system tray where the touchscreen keyboard and pen settings are also managed.  That begs the question, is there a way on Desktop PCs to put the language bar into the system tray?

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-01-22T04:27:17+00:00

    I've had this problem on Windows 7 Ultimate and now I have it on Windows 10 Pro 1709 (16299.192). Hoping (not very much) on a real official solution soon.

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-04-13T11:19:53+00:00

    Had the same problem after upgrading to the build 1709. (Fall Creators Upate ?)

    Disabled functionality to show Language-bar on my taskbar.

    After reboot my custom taskbar-toolbar where still there.

    Disabling language-bar on taskbar :

    • goto Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Language\Advanced settings
    • click 'Options' in 'Switching input methods'
    • set 'Language Bar' hidden

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