Icons Keep Disappearing From Taskbar - Windows 11

Anonymous
2022-09-07T13:59:50+00:00

I upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11 a few months ago, and ever since I've been having a problem where the icons disappear from the taskbar. It happens while I'm using the laptop as well as when it comes out of hibernation.

I know this can be fixed temporarily by restarting Windows Explorer in the task manager, but this is happening several times a day and it's getting annoying. Is there a permenant fix yet?

I'm using Windows 11 Home version 21H2 build 22000.856 on a HP laptop with an Intel i5 1035G1 processor and 8GB of RAM. The problem didn't exist when I was running Windows 10.

Thanks.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-12-24T03:05:47+00:00

    The problem with Windows Explorer in Windows 11 is deep. In addition to the taskbar icons bug, I have seen newer bugs as well

    1. Open minimized Windows Explorer would come to top of the screen for no reason whatsoever with no clicks.
    2. Windows explorer closed windows would stuck on the screen like a background

    We need rewrite for this stupid old library and make it responsive and reliable like MacOS/Linux.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-12-26T11:52:05+00:00

    Same issue here, icons become invisible when closing a fullscreen app or game or when switching between desktops, started to happen after windows 11 update 23H2, worthy to mention that:

    1- did a reset pc with keep files and apps.

    2- did icon cache rebuild.

    3- did scan system using (sfc & dism).

    4- did reinstall using iso.

    and all above solutions didn't help, this is officially a BUG in windows 11.

    fyi

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-12-26T18:05:13+00:00

    This worked for me.

    Open Task Manager (Ctrl, Shift, Esc), scroll down to Windows Processes and find "Windows Explorer". Click on Windows Explorer and up top click "Restart Task."

    Your screen may flicker for a second, but will come back right away with all your taskbar icons present. At least it worked for me. :)

    Best of luck

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-12-30T14:35:53+00:00

    Recently experiencing this problem after installing Update for 22H2 for x64-based Systems (KB4023057). The issue manifests for me after resuming from sleep state.

    Re-starting the Windows Explorer process fixes it. As reported by others.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-12-30T15:40:49+00:00

    Indeed - as reported many times by many others !

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