Windows 11 File Explorer address and menu bars invisible

Anonymous
2024-01-26T20:39:51+00:00

Suddenly on one of my Windows 11 Pro systems at home the address bar and menu bar became invisible. They were there and responded to mouse clicks and I could type in the address bar. But they are invisible. The problem existed whether signed in to the console session or an RDP session.

Also, in File Explorer and on the desktop when I right clicked, the menu window appeared but was blank. I could move the cursor through it and see a change and get submenus to open but of course they too were blank. I clicked on these menus and they responded with the appropriate response depending on where the cursor was when clicked.

I tried playing with themes, display properties, I've run SFC /scannow and DISM (with the restorehealth option). The first SFC found corruption and said it fixed it. Subsequent runs have found no problems. The last thing I did was do a Reset (keeping files). Nothing I've done has made any difference.

My account has admin rights on the system. I tried signing in with another account which also has admin rights and for this account the bars weren't invisible but simply not there. I then signed out of the other account and signed back in as myself. Much to my surprise the bars are now gone for me as well! This had not happened despite multiple reboots and all else that I had done. Only after signing in with the other account and then back in as myself. I rebooted but no change.

Any ideas how to fix this one system?

Jonathan

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-06-07T14:28:53+00:00

    On my French WIndows 11 family 23H2, I had to uninstall KB5037771 to bring back my address bar.

    This worked perfectly for me on US Windows 11 Pro 22H2, uninstalled KB5037771 and voila, all working, as shown below in my screenshot.

    Image

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-05-17T18:25:42+00:00

    I believe I found the fix for my problem and I believe it was suggested earlier in this thread so why I didn't try it then I don't know.

    I uninstalled the display adapter and driver in Device Manager. Immediately I could see everything that had been hidden or invisible before. I rebooted and of course the adapter was reinstalled and the Explorer window bars again became blank and the other problems like empty right click menus in Explorer.

    So I disabled the adapter which again made things visible. That should fix it until I figure out just what to do for a better fix. The latest driver is installed (very old) so I'm thinking an add-in display adapter to replace the built-in one.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-01-29T18:23:52+00:00

    I did the nuke and pave but unfortunately it didn't help. But now I'm noticing something else. It may have been this way before and I just didn't notice it or it may be new.

    If I sign into the console there is no right click response on the desktop or in a FE window, and the FE address and menu bars are not there or active.

    But if I sign in via RDP, I can right click on the Desktop or in FE and get a response. Also the FE bars are present although invisible. But even this is odd in that when I right click on the Desktop or in FE, I get a blank context menu window. If I then click on the bottom area of it where the Properties option would be, I then get the actual right-click menu appearing which is fully functional. Clicking on the FE menu bar doesn't do that but where you click causes the appropriate action just like when things are normal.

    I'm starting to lean towards a hardware issue rather than software since there's a difference between the console and RDP sessions. I'll see if I have another video card on hand which will fit this system and see if that changes anything. I'm not very concerned about this problem though as the PC gets light use and fortunately isn't anyone's main PC.

    BTW Windows 10 works great on it with no problems so there's some sort of issue with this PC and Windows 11 which has just cropped up as it's had Win11 on it for at least a year with no problems at all until this.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-01-26T22:17:11+00:00

    First things first, close any open apps... Then right click on the taskbar somewhere in the open and click Task Manager... Make sure you are on the Processes tab, scroll down to Windows Explorer, right click on it and click End Process... After doing this, click the windows key and R to open the Run dialog and type explorer.exe and OK...

    Once everything reappears, open File Explorer and let me know how you made out!

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-01-26T22:14:50+00:00

    Hi Jonathan. My name is Chris and I am a Windows Independent Expert. I will be happy to try and sort you out today!

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