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
    2024-05-17T18:25:42+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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  2. Anonymous
    2024-05-20T01:37:52+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.

    Jonathan, do you mean the GPU driver? If so, did you happen to be running an old AMD driver?

    I have a 6600XT GPU, and I had to use an old driver (I think from around 2021) as newer drivers caused display problems with Word 2021 (text disappearing and reappearing as you type). I don't understand how Microsoft can't seem to keep the basics working these days like Word and File Explorer.

    Also, is anyone else using StartAllBack? Just trying to think of potential causes, but I suspect someone smarter than me would have flagged it as a possibility by now if so.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-05-20T18:37:19+00:00

    I had this problem. I use StartAllBack. I updated to the latest version and the issue was fixed.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-05-20T23:01:01+00:00

    I can confirm that certain display adapters are involved with this issue. This case is an old dell computer with a Intel Q35 Chipset, and the WDDM driver somehow bonks the ribbon bar.

    In this case selecting display drivers, update, select from a list and selecting Microsoft Basic Display Adapter restored the menu bar. We did have to manually update the screen resolution. This is a simple work computer, no graphics acceleration.

    I guess you could experiment with later similar drivers from Intel, I would guess they might work with an older chipset.

    Or an inexpensive gpu card would probably work

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-05-21T03:00:43+00:00

    That's a good idea I didn't think of it. I just now tried it and it worked. Thanks!

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