My Taskbar is missing and I have no Start button - what do I do?

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Last update - at least from me. I did a full reinstall of Win XP Pro from the original CD and that brought back the task bar, start button, clock everything except all programs and Win updates. It's a long road to rebuild - start with Windows Update so you get the service packs and umpteen other "Critical Updates". The move files back from the backup disk and cull the progams and reinstall those. I'm moving the program folders back but downloading new versions or clean download and letting the Install Wizard install them as if for the first time except in some cases specialized items I might have had set up will be intact from the archived folder. Have to reinstall the printer and any other peripherals that aren't simple plug n play types.

Big pain but the computer is functional again. Stil feel there's a simpler fix out there and still interested in a better answer than the big kahuna of a total reformat/reinstall.

dick in kc

If your taskbar comes back and then disappears, it is likely set to "auto-hide" right-click (right mouse button) on the taskbar and select properties. Then, uncheck the auto-hide feature. The one thing I have seen take out explorer.exe and be pretty much unrepairable was when google desktop was manually removed. I did a system restore to before google desktop was removed and it fixed it on one computer, another computer remained broken.

If it is still possible to access the task manager through Ctrl-Alt-Del while in normal or safe mode, then you can try to run the regedit command, and then check for this entry

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell the value data should be "Explorer.exe". If it is not, then change it, or else if you don't have that value name, create it. After that, restart. Hope it will help.

Steve

I seem to have a worse problem here. I'm not sure if my comp is infected by a virus but I do not seem to have a desktop (only has the background image in the computer) no start bar and windows explorer could not open. The problem seemed to occur after I cancelled an installation of google desktop.

this solution worked. THANKS SO MUCH.

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell the value data should be "Explorer.exe

Greetings from Devon Leo .
I have a blue line along the bottom of the screen and no Start button or clock.
If I place my mouse pointer on the blue line I get the correct double arrow but I cannot click and drag to expand the line to show these items.
If I right click on the blue line I get a menu with 'Toolbars' at the top. If I click on an item like 'Quick Launch' I can then click and drag the blue line up to show the Start button the clock and Quick launch stuff etc.

However none of the tasks for open windows show up on the blue bar. If I minimise a window it vanishes - only to be found again by typing Alt Tab. I have tried the Task Manager and restarted exporer. I'm a bit dubious about messing with the registry.

Any ideas?

Thanks - Dennis

You may want this article: http://ask-leo.com/why_dont_running_programs_show_in_my_taskbar.html

We were having the same problem and removing Google Desktop did the trick. After logging in, press ctrl-alt-del and select Task Manager. Click File-> New Task and type "appwiz.cpl". This will bring up add/remove programs. Select Google Desktop and click remove. You may see some information pop ups. Keeping clicking ok untill the app is removed. Restart your computer and your start bar and icons should be back.

Hello. I'm having somewhat of the same problem. My taskbar is "painted over" with beige, no start button. I tried fixing the registry, yet I cant start -> run anything because when I do press the windows button on the keyboard, I can only access "All Programs". I can't ctrl + alt + del and every time I try and open something it says "This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem." I can't reinstall anything , because when I do click on the .exe to install it, that same message pops up. Has anyone had this problem before? Thanks a lot

I'm running XP Pro. My taskbar/Start button ceases to respond only after I open MyDocuments or any other folder that resides in MyDocuments. I can still see the taskbar, and its 'frozen' in its last state. I've run 3 different antivirus programs, 2 spyware and 2 adware programs with nothing showing up. Windows-Esc does nothing, opening task manager and running a 'new' instance of explorer again does nothing. As long as I don't open MyDocuments everything works fine.

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