date and time on taskbar issue

[richard]

At the extreme right on my taskbar there is the time of day. When I
placed my cursor over the time of day, a yellow box used to appear with
the day and date. That no longer happens. If I pull the taskbar up the
day, month, and year appear beneath the time--but pulling the taskbar up
eats into working space and stacks some icons vertically. Not good.

Any ideas how to get that box back that used to appear when I put the
cursor over the time?

 

[Sharon F]

At the extreme right on my taskbar there is the time of day. When I
placed my cursor over the time of day, a yellow box used to appear with
the day and date. That no longer happens. If I pull the taskbar up the
day, month, and year appear beneath the time--but pulling the taskbar up
eats into working space and stacks some icons vertically. Not good.

Any ideas how to get that box back that used to appear when I put the
cursor over the time?

I suspect what it is happening is the yellow infotip is still appearing but
it's hidden behind the taskbar. This is a long time bug in XP's
notification area. Unfortunately, there is no absolute fix. There are a few
workarounds but none of those work consistently meaning they may work for a
while and then the problem returns or they may not work at all.

Two of the workarounds:
1) Press Start to pop up the start menu and then try hovering over time
again
2) Log off and then log on

 

[Stan Brown]

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 10:03:41 -0600 from Sharon F

I suspect what it is happening is the yellow infotip is still appearing but
it's hidden behind the taskbar.

Could be. But when this happens to me I see the top part of the
yellow tooltip, so I know the rest is behind the taskbar. The OP
didn't mention that; maybe it happened and he didn't notice.

This is a long time bug in XP's notification area. Unfortunately,
there is no absolute fix. There are a few workarounds but none of
those work consistently meaning they may work for a while and then
the problem returns or they may not work at all.

Two of the workarounds:
1) Press Start to pop up the start menu and then try hovering over time
again
2) Log off and then log on

3) (and my personal favorite): Stop and restart Explorer without
logging off. This is superior IMHO because it doesn't interfere with
any running programs. See "Taskbar Auto-hide is Broken" at
<http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/winxptip.htm#TaskbarAutohide>.


P.S. The OP might want to run a memory test, downloadable free at
<http://www.memtest.org>. I used to have similar problems with the
tooltips, but I was also having crashes that turned out to be due to
bad memory. Since I've replaced the memory I've not had the problem
with hidden tooltips.

 

[Sharon F]

P.S. The OP might want to run a memory test, downloadable free at
<http://www.memtest.org>. I used to have similar problems with the
tooltips, but I was also having crashes that turned out to be due to
bad memory. Since I've replaced the memory I've not had the problem
with hidden tooltips.

Restarting explorer. A good idea but another workaround and not a permanent
fix. Annoying bug, isn't it?

For me it seemed to be a change in video drivers that would trigger the
behavior. That was back several years ago though. Still using the same
brand (ATI) and haven't had the problem for quite some time.

You're probably aware that this is a z-order problem - confusion of what
belongs on top - the infotip or the taskbar. I would suspect software,
including the operating system and drivers, before suspecting hardware as
the root of the problem. Anything is possible though

To the OP - Since you didn't mention if you could see the very edge of the
infotip or not, may want to check in Folder Options or any tweaking
programs that you use to see if infotips are enabled. They may have been
turned off accidentally.

 

[richard]

Restarting explorer. A good idea but another workaround and not a permanent
fix. Annoying bug, isn't it?

For me it seemed to be a change in video drivers that would trigger the
behavior. That was back several years ago though. Still using the same
brand (ATI) and haven't had the problem for quite some time.

You're probably aware that this is a z-order problem - confusion of what
belongs on top - the infotip or the taskbar. I would suspect software,
including the operating system and drivers, before suspecting hardware as
the root of the problem. Anything is possible though

To the OP - Since you didn't mention if you could see the very edge of the
infotip or not, may want to check in Folder Options or any tweaking
programs that you use to see if infotips are enabled. They may have been
turned off accidentally.

Yes, I could see the very edge of the infotip. Odd, but today the
infotip shows up as it should. A mystery to me.

 

[Stan Brown]

Yes, I could see the very edge of the infotip. Odd, but today the
infotip shows up as it should. A mystery to me.

If you read the earlier responses in this thread, it shouldn't be all
that big a mystery.

 

[Thomas Wendell]

This might help:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Line 321 left...


--
Tumppi
=================================
Most learned on these newsgroups
Helsinki, FINLAND
(translations from/to FI not always accurate
=================================

 

[Nick]

This problem is caused by a bug in Windows that causes the taskbar
tool-tips to lose their "topmost" window style and be covered up by the
taskbar.

Check out this web site for more information and a fix:
http://www.acquaviva.us/tooltipmanager

Tool Tip Manager was written specifically to fix this annoying problem
by processing taskbar window messages and resetting the "topmost"
window style for tool-tips as needed, automatically.

Regards,

Nick Acquaviva