It's quite easy to accidentally shrink the taskbar off the screen, hence the
"lock taskbar" option added to XP. Minimize all your windows (Win+M). Pull
your mouse cursor to the bottom of the screen, and when the cursor turns
into a double-headed arrow at the bottom or just a few pixels up from the
bottom, click, hold, and drag up to resize the taskbar. If you do not get
the double-headed arrow at the bottom, try the top, left, and right as well.
It's possible that you shrank it AND dragged it to another edge of the
display. If you do not get the double-headed arrow on any edge of the
screen, press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to pull up the task manager. On the processes
tab, look for explorer.exe. If you do not see that process running, you
have a different issue. We can worry about that if that's the problem
though. If you do see explorer.exe and are still unable to get the
double-headed arrow anywhere, do File--New Task from the menu bar in the
task manager. Enter "regedit" and press enter. Navigate to
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. Is the value of
shell "explorer.exe?" Make a mental note. Then navigate to the same path
but in HKCU. Is there a "shell" entry at all? If there is, is it
explorer.exe? If it's not there at all, and the value in HKLM is
explorer.exe, try a little harder to get the double-headed arrow. If the
value in HKLM is not explorer.exe, someone changed your shell. This is
highly unlikely. You can change the value to explorer.exe, close the
registry, pull the task manager back up (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), and do File--New
Task. Enter "explorer.exe" and press enter.
--
Ray at home
Microsoft ASP MVP
Kelly said:
When I first installed W2K Pro and finally finished all the other
installations, I had a double row of task bars at the bottom of the screen
that showed all the programs loading as my machine booted. Recently they
disappeared and I can't find a way to bring them back. Does any one know of
a way to accomplish this or was it just an anomaly that I got used to and am
doomed to live without? It was nice to be able to see what was open o the
desktop with out everything squishing to gether in a single line. Hope
somebody has an answer
