Tip: When Auto-Hide of Taskbar doesn't work

[Stan Brown]

I have "always on top" and "auto-hide" checked, but today the
taskbar seems to take many seconds to auto-hide itself, if it ever
does. And the tooltips for icons in the system tray (oops, I mean
"notification area") come up BEHIND the taskbar. AND, though "lock
the taskbar" isn't checked, I can't move the taskbar (but can
resize it).

I googled, but the only thing that seemed hopeful was a Registry
edit. However, that involved creating a value, which as a limited
user I can't do.

Somehow I thought to open a command prompt, then Ctrl-Alt-Del and
terminate the Explorer.exe process. Then in the command prompt I
typed
start explorer.exe

Worked great! Tooltips show in front of the taskbar, it auto-hides
itself when I mouse away, and I can move it to another edge of the
screen.

 

[Kelly]

That doesn't work for all users. And can be done via the Task Manager, not
needing CMD.

--
Happy Mardi Gras,
Kelly (MS-MVP)

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com

 

[Stan Brown]

That doesn't work for all users. And can be done via the Task Manager, not
needing CMD.

Cool -- I didn't see a button but now I see that Run is a menu
selection in Task Manager.

Is there any solution that does work for all users?

(P.S. It seems my taskbar gets confused when my computer wakes up
from hibernation.)

 

[Trevor L.]

Stan and Kelly,

This is an occurrence (tool tips going behind the taskbar) that bothers me
(and my wife) from time-to-time. I can't say exactly when. It is at
infrequent intervals; it may in fact be when awaking from hibernation. I
haven't yet been able to pinpoint when it does happen.

Are you saying that closing explorer (from the Task Manager) and then
reopening it (by CMD explorer) is a solution that will always work?

I hope so.
--
Cheers,
Trevor L.


I choose Polesoft Lockspam to fight spam, and you?
http://www.polesoft.com/refer.html

 

[Stan Brown]

This is an occurrence (tool tips going behind the taskbar) that bothers me
(and my wife) from time-to-time. I can't say exactly when. It is at
infrequent intervals; it may in fact be when awaking from hibernation. I
haven't yet been able to pinpoint when it does happen.

Are you saying that closing explorer (from the Task Manager) and then
reopening it (by CMD explorer) is a solution that will always work?

It works for me, but Kelly said it doesn't always work (though my
request for details hasn't been answered yet).

My perception is the same as yours: it seems to be associated with
returning from hibernation. I discovered it only about 24 hours
ago, but so far I've had to do it only once in each session.

It's annoying that I have to do it at all, but at least it works
(for me).

Give it a try and see how it works for you. There's no risk, and if
it works for you then it doesn't matter whether it works for
everyone.