Windows 10 Taskbar bug presented in 1709, worst on 1803 upgrade

Just an update, I did test 17728.1000 last weekend, but not for very long. I couldn't make the second issue (notification overflow window getting cut off by the taskbar) happen. However, last night I installed 17735.1000, which was just released a few days ago. I tested with that today and, sadly, the second issue is apparently not fixed:

That Uplay icon is getting cut off.

Sigh, I'm going to report this to Jason on Monday.

Update: I've been testing this more over the weekend with more notification apps installed, and the issue does seem to be improved, as the only app icon having problems is Uplay, and it sometimes completely disappears even when running (and showing up when making it always present on the taskbar).

A quick workaround to the issue of being unable to access hidden icons is right click on '^' -> Taskbar Settings ->Notification Area (select which icons appears on the taskbar) and toggle ones you want to access.

Well, I hope you settle down as quickly as possible, are you already working on the new build? For me they should release updates without upsetting everything.

I'm currently installing 17728.1000 to test with. But yes, that lack of QA is quite frustrating.

Well, I hope you settle down as quickly as possible, are you already working on the new build? For me they should release updates without upsetting everything.

Okay, I had a long phone conversation with Jason, the Microsoft escalation guy today. I'll try and boil it down to an executive summary.

So the previously mentioned issues with the overflow notification icons:

1. Missing app icons
2. Z-order of overflow window
3. Spacing between icons (padding) in the overflow window
4. Blurry icons

The second issue has been fixed in the "RS5" version - the Windows 10 version that will be released in the Fall (likely version 1809). The newest RS5 insider builds from July (17718 or newer) shouldn't have the problem. And it's actually not a Z-order problem, because the overflow window wasn't actually getting displayed behind the taskbar, but rather "cut off." I'm going to validate this, and see if that also solves the size of the overflow window.

The third issue (padding) has not been fixed in RS5 yet. Jason can reproduce it easily like the rest of us.

The first and fourth issues (missing icons and blurry icons) are, at least partially, related. Here's a fun fact - when there are display scaling changes that necessitate the re-creation of the overflow window and its icons, the shell (Explorer process) notifies the running applications that have notification icons, and those apps are supposed to populate their icon in the new overflow window. In version 1803 there were major changes to the display DPI subsystem, and for some reason some of those apps are not re-populating their icon with every overflow window re-creation. Additionally, there is a "built-in" mechanism to Windows that is supposed to handle such apps that don't properly re-create their icons, where it stores a "scan" of the previous tray icon and resizes it for the new overflow window. Blurriness happens over time due to "scans of the resized scans" as those icons keep getting re-created with overflow window re-creations (think of a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy.....). There are two Microsoft product icons that have one or the other - Windows Defender has the blurry icon problem, and Skype for Business is one of the icons that disappears. Jason is working with both of those product groups to dig into it.

If you want to read more, check https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/shell/taskbar and search for "Taskbar Creation Notification"

In summary, it sounds like issue 2 is the only one that will get fixed relatively soon. Issues 1 and 4 sound like 3rd-party vendors may have a role in conforming to a newer subsystem, but ironically some of Microsoft's own apps are included in that.

I hope this makes sense!