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Summary: We'll look at solutions for several reasons that could make the Taskbar and Start button disappear.
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All of a sudden my taskbar is gone. I can't find it, so I have no Start button to click on, no quick launch start programs from - I can't even see what time it is! How do I get it back? |
There are a couple of different ways that the task bar can disappear, or appear to disappear. Naturally the solutions are different, as are the workarounds.
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Press CTRL+ESC. If your Taskbar magically reappears, then it's probably simply been resized too small, repositioned somewhere you didn't expect it, or perhaps it's beneath another application that's running full-screen on your computer.
The workaround? Press CTRL+ESC to access the Taskbar.
To fix it, this previous article, "My Taskbar is too small to be useful, what can I do?" includes a short video that shows the settings you can change to make it behave the way you want, and/or the approach to making it "big enough" once again.
If CTRL+ESC didn't make it come back, then the program that displays the task bar most likely isn't running. That program is often called the "Windows Shell", but it's really "explorer.exe". It's the program that not only displays the Taskbar, but also responds to the CTRL+ESC sequence.
The workaround: press CTRL+ALT+DEL to fire up the Task Manager. Now on the File menu, select New Task (Run...). Type in "explorer" and press OK. That should restart explorer and re-display your Taskbar.
In some cases that may not work, so we fall into the various approaches on fixing it.
If you don't have the Windows Shell running, you can still run programs as I described above: use Task Manager's File, New Task (Run...) to run the programs we need. I often like to run a command prompt, "cmd", as a quicker way to type in and run other programs from there.
My first recommendation is to run an up-to-date anti-virus and anti-spyware scan. Both viruses and spyware are known to occasionally interfere with the Windows Shell.
Then, I would run the system file checker, as outlined in this article: What is the System File Checker, and how do I run it?. That will check for missing or damaged files in Windows, and repair or replace those that it can.
Finally, you may be faced with re-installing Windows. You can perform what's called a "repair install" that will preserve your data. This article: "How should I reinstall Windows?" discusses that.
Now, naturally, there may be specific cases where a specific cause could result in a specific, simple, solution. In fact I'm sure that readers will comment with such various approaches. (Along the lines of "If you have this virus all you need do is twiddle that setting".) Those approaches may, or may not, resolve the entire problem. But if they make sense to you, then by all means try them out.
Microsoft also has a Knowledgebase article on the issue that includes even more steps to try: Taskbar Is Missing When You Log On to Windows.
Related:
My TaskBar is too small to be useful, what can I do? The Windows Taskbar is a very flexible piece of screen real estate. There are many things about it you can change, or fix if they change unexpectedly.
What is the System File Checker, and how do I run it? The System File Checker is a little known utility that validates that Windows own files are undamaged. It's a simple to run command line program.
How should I reinstall Windows? There are different ways to reinstall Windows. Which is appropriate depends on the problem you're attempting to solve.
Microsoft - Taskbar Is Missing When You Log On to Windows
Article C2529 - January 21, 2006
whew, ctrl alt del works... thanks a lot...
Posted by: xindi924 at May 4, 2009 2:38 AMLeo's recipe for how to get the task bar back is nearly correct. At first I got the same result as
"Posted by: Asif at March 9, 2009 3:46 PM" in that an explorer window opened showing My Documents. Then I kept looking through my google hits page and found an article at Windows Annoyances that said I needed to close all visible Explorer windows first. So I did Alt-Tab enough times to get to each explorer window and closed them all. Then when I tried Leo's recipe, it worked :-)
Apparently when explorer.exe starts up, it checks to see if another instance of itself is running already. If not, it turns itself into a taskbar window at the bottom of the screen, otherwise it opens an ordinary explorer window displaying My Documents. Clever behaviour in a program, but confusing for us humans.
Thanks Leo, perhaps you could add "close any open explorer windows" to your recipe.
Jim
Posted by: Jim Henderson at May 6, 2009 4:43 AMTHANK YOU SOO SOOO SOOOOO MUCH! I must abmit I don't really know much about computers,but through trial and error i've been teaching myself. When I got on and couldn't find my taskbar nor did I see my icons,I thought i'd lost my computer! lol Your site made it easy and simple to follow and I got it! Thanks!
Posted by: Elsia at May 25, 2009 1:01 PMNone of your suggestions worked, but it was a learning experience trying them. I finally got fed up that under normal bootup I had no mouse or keyboard control. Ctrl-Esc and Ctrl-Alt-Del did nothing. I got so fed up after multiple reinstalls, etc., that I shook the mouse violently. And then from the edge of the screen, the mouse pointer appeared. Was this computer setup with 2 monitors? This computer had been hooked up to two monitors at some point under the local administrator profile, although not for years under the current user's profile. Safe mode was coming up fine, but the extended desktop was on and the monitors were switched. I moved my test monitor to the other monitor port and there was my desktop. Back in business!
Posted by: Christopher at May 29, 2009 4:19 PMI tried all of the above and somehow it won't work.I pressed CTRL+ALT+DEL and brought up the Task Manager and typed in explorer,instead it brought up My Documents.I can't do no spyware check because I don't have any installed on my computer and can't find any that is good enough.Any advice?PLEASE!
Posted by: Savannah at June 2, 2009 4:45 PMTHANK YOU THANK YOU SOO MUCH I HAD NO TASK BAR NO START BUTTON OR MENU AFTER SERVICE PACK 2 UPDATE
Posted by: GREG at June 3, 2009 12:22 AMRAN MALAWARE BYTES VIRUSDETECTION IT FOUND 4 TROJANS
IT REMOVED THEM AND BOOM THERE WAS THE START MENU
AND TASK BAR THANK YOU SO MUCH
Thank you Thank you Thank you! My task bar disappeared on Sunday and I have gone through every program, document, and internet assist site that I could find! I finally stumbled upon this site and am so relieved!!! The "explorer" program was not running and I would have never have known that without your help!!!
Posted by: Desiree at June 9, 2009 5:14 PMProblem is are samed i can't see taskbar
Posted by: Rick at June 12, 2009 3:53 AMi do the all following method but its all failure
what i do
i think it will be better that i re-install window
This was so, so, so helpful! I can not thank you enough!
Posted by: Kalynn at June 13, 2009 6:41 AMAWESOME!! I was shocked when my taskbar disappeared! (I had my nose where it didn't belong in the task manager). I had no clue what I did and when I searched Google, your article was the first result. I simply typed in explorer as you said and WALAAA!!! It's back!! I've never fixed a computer problem so easily! THANKS!!
Posted by: Rebecca at June 13, 2009 6:37 PM