8 replies to this topic

[drmsucks]

Win 7 Home Premium

I have the taskbar set to autohide and it works great - for awhile. Then, all of a sudden, it quits autohiding (stays on all of the time) and won't disappear until I re-boot (or, stop and re-start explorer.exe), and, then, it works fine...until it doesn't!

From Google, I know that I am not the only victim of this.

Help!!!

[Broni]

Well, it must be some Win 7 glitch then...

[JohnT]

if you are using firefox in windows 7 go into Tools > Options > General and UnCheck "Show the downloads window when downloading a file"

The ‘Auto-hide’ feature for the Taskbar doesn’t mean “stay hidden no matter what!” When Auto-hide the Taskbar is enabled it is supposed to remain hidden unless either the mouse pointer is on the Taskbar or else the Taskbar has ‘focus’ (is the ‘active’ thing on the desktop).

When you first boot into Windows the Taskbar should have focus and be visible, remaining so until you click on something else. Then it disappears until it next regains focus. If it's remaining on view on your system then perhaps there is some ‘balloon tip’ of perhaps system tray notification which is kicking in and claiming focus for the Taskbar?

[drmsucks]

John T - Thanks for the suggestion I suspect that it is a focus issue; nonetheless, a bug. When the taskbar "locks" focus (quits autohiding), there are no observable messages from the notification area. If there is a "hidden" notification, the taskbar ought not hide it but, rather, show it. For years, I had no problems (except for the occasional glitch) with auto hide in XP or 98.

With reference to the FF suggestion, I, in fact, have the "Show downloads...) enabled. And, when the download is completed, I get a "Downloads complete" message from the notification area. I don't think that this is the cause.

However, the last time I "fixed" it (re-started explorer.exe), I noticed that there were three messages from the Win 7 Action Center that had not displayed before. Perhaps they were "stuck" behind the taskbar and caused it to "stick" - keep focus. But, the Action Center notifications were not displayed until the explorer.exe re-start, hence, my suggestion that the autohide feature is buggy.

[Broni]

I just found this: http://www.troublefi...ter+troubles%29

[drmsucks]

Broni - Thanks but that doesn't quite describe the problem I'm having.

I'm pretty sure that a notification of one kind or another fails to appear, so I don't acknowledge it, so the notification sits there unseen and locks focus on the Taskbar which then quits autohiding. It only happens every once in awhile so I haven't really been trying to figure it out - but now I will!

Keep the suggestions, articles, links coming!

[Broni]

I'd create restore point and I'd apply that hotfix anyway. Who know what else it may fix :)

[drmsucks]

Broni, on 11 March 2010 - 05:13 AM, said:

I'd create restore point and I'd apply that hotfix anyway. Who know what else it may fix :)

...or break. I have confidence in MS - they'll figure it out!

[Broni]

Quote

...or break.

True....LOL