Tame Windows’ unruly Taskbar with ease

By Fred Langa The Taskbars in XP, Vista, and Windows 7 have consistently misbehaved for a small but persistent number of users. If you’re one of the unlucky few whose Taskbar won’t hide and unhide, or whose Taskbar mysteriously (and annoyingly) unhides itself from time to time, these tweaks may be just the ticket.

• “You probably have received numerous questions about how to make the Taskbar work the way it is supposed to. I am unable to get my Taskbar to hide and unhide. I understand after days of Google search that this is a problem affecting many Win7 users. Any suggestions?”
  

Wrong settings: Sometimes an incorrect Taskbar Property setting or option is at fault. To check the settings, right-click on an empty part of the Taskbar and select Properties; a dialog box like the one in Figure 1 will appear.

Figure 1. Modify the Taskbar’s behavior via its right-click Properties menu. Win7′s is shown, but Vista’s and XP’s Taskbar Properties dialogs have similar options.

You’ll obviously want Auto-hide selected, Charles, but you might also experiment with Lock and custom settings to see what effect they have on your particular setup.

Related posts:

1. Controlling “Stacking” In XP’s Taskbar
2. Multi-Itemed Taskbar
3. Change Menu Formats At Will
4. Tame Windows’ Volume Shadow Copy Service
5. Free “Taskbar Commander”