Taskbar won't auto-hide

[Hiawatha Bray]

Even though I've set it to do auto-hiding, it doesn't work. It used to.
But in the last couple of days it stopped working. Now the taskbar stays
visible no matter what. I want to go back to auto-hiding. Anybody seen
this problem before? Thanks.

 

[deanspcreview]

I discovered the same issue on my Windows XP system. I found that by uninstalling the Windows updates from 8-13-08, the hide task bar functionality returned. I will now install one of the updates at a time to see which update caused the task bar issue. There were about 8 windows updates that I had installed on August 13, 2008.

 

[NovaFrost]

Likely Solution

I hope I can be of some help...

Often times Windows XP (and Vista) will refuse to hide because it mistakenly believes there is still a tooltip balloon open. (I see this a lot myself with APC's Powerchute Personal Edition.) Unfortunately the only way to get your taskbar to properly hide again (and I don't mean uncheck the "Keep the taskbar ontop of other widows" option for a quick fix) is to restart the machine so that Windows resets the tooltip balloon status. What a pain!

Thankfully through my inability to let it go and hatred for this problem I have written a file that will fix this! (Works great on my Vista machine!) All the program does is overwrite the phantom tooltip balloon and then clear the tooltip balloon and Tahdah!

The tooltip will stay up for 10 seconds so that you can read the info on it (just telling you what it does and how you can contact me if you have any problems). You can close this tooltip balloon like any other by clicking on it, or if you mouse over the program tray icon it will close itself instantly.

You can find my "Taskbar Slapper®" hosted by FileFactory at the following address:

http://www.filefactory.com/file/ag932d0/n/Taskbar_Slapper_exe

If you have any problems or questions (or would like to know what other little programs I've made such as Task Stopper® - for when any program generates a CPU intensive loop that even taskmanager can't pull you out of) please feel free to email me at: (e-mail address removed)

I hope this helps you like it did me!