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The case:
My wife and I share the same home PC for work, that we use independently throughout the day. We would like to be able to switch between our users without having to log out and close/reopen our respective documents and apps. Kinda like how it works on a Mac when you switch between multiple active user login sessions.
The Problem:
Whenever we try to use the "Switch User" functionality, the taskbar freezes (doesn't load) on whichever user you switch to. The only way to unfreeze the taskbar is to log out completely on one user (and subsequently close all apps/documents), and then login to the other user afterwards.
What I have tried:
Extra info:
Both users have Admin account type and our Windows 10 is updated to the latest version.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
It is very discomforting to see that relatively simple and ubiquitous peripherals like mice and keyboards can interfere with the OS so badly. Disabling HID devices is a poor workaround for something that MS should fix in the OS or the OEM manufacturers like RAZER should comply with MS specs. But then you have a MS intellimouse freezing the taskbar on an MS OS, it seems that MS itself has an internal interoperability problem.
Update: problem seems to have gone away. However, there have already been periods over the last 12 or so months in which I have been having it, when the problem "goes away" temporarily without intervention, only to resurface later just as randomly. So I am not holding my breath that some Microsoft patch resolved the issue. I just think that the problem being intermittent makes it even more difficult for me to pinpoint.
Same issue here. When you are logged into an account exhibiting the issue, you can use task manager to log out the other account and the problem will be resolved.
This is obviously not a workaround since that user will lose any unsaved work.
What I don't understand is how something like this could happen in the first place.
The switch user feature has existed since Windows NT 4.0 in 1996. Now, Windows 10, 25 years later, after dropping support for their last operating system 3 years ago, andonly supporting this OS, the OS quoted as the "Last version of the Windows OS" by Microsoft employee Jerry Nixon,
has broke this.
This is genuinely pathetic. There is a number of hotfixes I imagine they could apply to help mitigate the severity of this while they isolate and repair the cause, but we receive radio silence, and are forced to stick with solutions like "press an obscure hotkey combination to launch task manager and terminate the other user sessions, hoping you didn't have any unsaved files" or flat-out not shutting down our computer, ever.
How have we gotten to the point where core features of an OS installed on over a billion personal computers stops working and the only thing we can do is just hope Microsoft decides its worth their time to repair?
Same issue here.
If the other user is first logged out, this does not happen.
I am using 2 screens.
If I force the display mode to single-screen only, this also does not happen, but attempting to switch to an extended display will freeze the taskbar.
