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
    2024-01-31T21:06:35+00:00

    aaargh I was so optimistic this would work, so simple but for me its a no.

    thanks for sharing

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-02-03T16:26:44+00:00

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-02-03T16:30:34+00:00

    Microsoft's position on this issue in 2024 is: "we don't give a..."

    Just everyday, go to your task manager and crash/restart file explorer. Then go through the inconvenience of reopening manually all the folders you had open before that. ....until it happens again....

    Then, we, Microshits, suggest that you go to your task manager again and crash/restart file explorer again, until a couple of hours later it happens again. Then, simply, go again to your task manager; and crash/restart file explorer again.

    It's simple!!!!!

    It's Microsoft!!!!!!!!

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-02-05T15:10:26+00:00

    I have a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Extreme which I methodically keep up-to-date on latest Windows 11 version, BIOS, drivers, etc, since I'm an obsessed app designer type. I've had this problem since updating to Windows 11 last year. Not always, just sometimes. It seems to be associated with a period of sleep or hibernation. Some icons disappear from the task bar and leave spaces. However, the button areas are still active normally. When hovering over them, they show the task label. After selecting a hidden one and opening the task, the icon usually reappears.

    This is an irritating behavior, but I can live with it because other than no icon, things work normally and they seem to come back on their own. My point in writing this post is to tell Microsoft that it's definitely THEIR problem, not the user's. So if you have the problem, you should probably not bother spending hours trying to fix it. Microsoft, if you can't fix it, at least add a right'click drop down selection on the task bar called "Refresh Task Bar" to restore icons.

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-02-06T17:52:43+00:00

    I have two computers running Windows 11, a laptop and a desktop. Both have this issue. I believe the laptop had this issue right after doing a clean install. Probably the 1st or 2nd boot.

    I have previously used the restart explorer.exe method to fix it. I also use multiple virtual desktops and switching between them sometimes is the cause of the issue, but is also sometimes the fix.

    As such, I would advise everyone to stay away from invasive "fixes" like dsm repair or OS upgrade, or a reinstall. Most likely it will happen again regardless. I can't believe how MS cannot fix such a small bug in the most used UI of the OS for so long.

    For anyone wanting a permanent fix, I think you'll have to install Windows 10...

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