Applications won't minimize to toolbar

  • Thread starter Thread starter OzzieA
  • Start date Start date
O

OzzieA

I'm running XP Pro which has been updated automatically
with all the latest maintenance releases. I know Windows
quite well but suddenly I have a pesky little problem I
can't find the solution to.

Usually when an application is minimized it settles on
the toolbar to the right of the QuickLaunch icons. But
now when I minimize any application, it vanishes. The
application disappears behind the Toolbar toward the
bottom left corner. I can get it back with ALT+TAB, but
what happened to the way we are all used to? I'm sure the
solution is quite simple but I've tried every obvious
configuration without success. I've sought help from
WUGNET and suggestions have been made but none has worked.

Here are a few symptoms that might help someone come up
with the source of the problem. When I uncheck
QuickLaunch from the Toolbars, the entire Toolbar
disappears into the bottom of the screen. It will not
come up until I right click and turn QuickLaunch back on.
Also, I can make the Toolbar larger but I cannot drag
the "zipper" to the left of the QuickLaunch icons
(immediately to the right of the START button) anywhere.
The problem seems to have started after I installed
Executive Software Diskeeper. I've tried to do a system
restore but I have to go back quite a long time.

Gee, at first I thought this was a minor passing Window
quirk with an easy fix. Wrong!

Please - HELP! Thank you in advance.
 
Paul, I checked out the link and indeed they are
reporting the exact same problem. But, as with the last
post on that thread, I persomed every deletion and
checked for all the mentioned apps - I have none of them.

HELP! please.
 
Is this happening for all user accounts of just one ?

The only application I have which doesnt minimize to the taskbar, is AVG
AntiVirus which when its running a manual scan mimizes its window to just
show a mini title bar just above the start button.

Have you been using any 3rd party tools like tweakui, to change windows
settings ?

Paul
 
I'm the only user in this computer but following your tip
I created a new user and that fixed the problem -- for
the new user. My problem now is to either fix the old
user profile or port all profile details to the new user.
Outlook, for one, won't recognize the new user. Other
applications "think" I've just installed them or cannot
verify they have been registered. So short of changing
each and every setting in all affected applications, is
there a general way to just "fix" the old profile?

Thanks for the help.
 
You could try and find out whats different,

If its user specific then its probably a setting under the registery
hierarchy HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Have a poke around, its probably somewhere
under keys labelled explorer or desktop, be intuitive, in most cases the
developers were farely reasonable in what names they gave to keys, and
values.

If you're feeling adventurous you can export sections of this hierarchy to
text files(right click on key and choose export, select file type TXT) and
write a little program or script to compare them.

Paul
 
I've resolved the problem by creating a new user account
and tranfering as much data from the old, defective
account to the new one. This has not been a simple
process.

It seems to me Microsoft should supply a simple straight
forward method of identifying this as the source of the
problem and fixing it.

Thank you for your help.

Ozzie
 
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