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
    2014-03-05T20:23:00+00:00

    Alright, get this. When I restart my system, my custom toolbars disappear. Then, if I open up Task Manager, scroll down to the bottom to find Windows Explorer, select it and click the Restart button, my toolbars reappear! I have tried it twice now, and it has worked both times. I am kind of amused that it works. In the distant past, I have been able to recover from frozen screens and various strange behaviors by restarting Explorer.exe. I guess some things about Windows really don't change! Now, I wonder if I can automate this process to run when I log in. I will look into doing so with a batch file or similar when I get a chance.

    Ethan Hayes

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-03-06T12:37:50+00:00

    I have the same problem as described, with Toolbars (Folder Names) showing on the TaskBar OK but empty with no icons. I restarted Windows Explorer in the manner described by Ethan Hayes and all icons reappeared immediately. However after a restart they were missing again!

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-03-25T02:33:35+00:00

    Same problem was appearing in Windows 7.

    It was explained as race condition between two processes on startup and it was corrected in SP1.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-03-25T11:24:29+00:00

    Thanks, but I have Windows7 with SP1 installed with all updates and the problema continues.

    I suppose the problem was reintroduced in one of the latest updates and none of the solutions in this thread solves the problem

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  5. Anonymous
    2014-03-25T12:53:20+00:00

    A race condition would explain my intermittent behavior.

    But alas, nothing in this thread has worked for me, and I have tried them all

    @Ethan Hayes: I can confirm that restarting my windows explorer did not fix the problem.

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