Taskbar is buggy when not at the bottom of screen.

[steve17]

I find when the taskbar is not at the bottom, there are two bugs. I normally put it at the left side of the screen.

If I stretch out the taskbar to make it wider, do a "switch user", and return, the taskbar will be shrunk to the default size. The default size is about the width of an icon.

If I use auto-hide, do a "switch user", and return, I can't un-hide it with the mouse, until it's been un-hidden by other means, like pressing the "windows" key.

Can anyone else confirm these problem?

It doesn't surprise me that Windows taskbars are buggy when not at the bottom. XP's taskbar won't group tabs unless the taskbar is at the bottom.

Do you suppose I'm the only person in the world that doesn't have the taskbar at the bottom? Am I also only one of two people in the world that hides the taskbar? I know of one other person that hides it.

[LordFett]

Have you tried doing a restart after changing the size? I remember with XP if it crashed for some reason before doing a restart any changes I made to anything on the task bar were undone.

[steve17]

I have re-booted Win7 RTM dozens of times and I've rebooted Win7 RC hundreds of times.

The taskbar width I set survives re-boots and survives logoffs. It's just "switch user" that causes it to shrink to the default width.

Similarly, after reboots and logoffs, my auto-hide works fine. It's only "switch user" that screws it up.

I've been trying to get someone else to confirm this problem on several forums to no avail. I guess I am the only person in the world who moves the taskbar from the bottom of the screen.

[LordFett]

I never used auto hide, can't stand it. But I tried it out for your testing. Switched, it was fine. Moved it to the side and resized it and when I came back it was shrunk but was unable to unhide fine.

[steve17]

it was shrunk but was unable to unhide fine.

Thanks LordFett for testing. I don't understand the end of the sentence. I'm not sure if you had the problem of the mouse not being able to unhide it after a "switch user".

Can you confirm you did have the unhide problem?

Thanks,

Steve

[LordFett]

No unhide problem, but it resized. I stretched it to 2x the width it was. switch user come back and it was single width, but unhide was fine with mouse.

[steve17]

Thanks LordFett. I really appreciate it.

It seems the shrinking taskbar is a bug in Win7. It exists in the RTM and RC versions. I did some more investigation. It happens when the taskbar is on the right or left. It does not happen when the taskbar is at the top or bottom. It only happens when auto-hide is used. And of course it is triggered by doing a "switch user" and coming back.

I wonder if it is possible to report this to Microsoft. Does the fact that I purchased the upgrade license entitle me to a little free service from Microsoft?

Steve

[steve17]

The failure to unhide with the mouse problem is more puzzling. It seems to be unique to this machine. Apparently my hardware and Win7 RTM don't play well together in this case.

I have 4 installations on this machine of Win7 RTM, 2 32 bit and 2 64 bit. All of them have this problem. I also have 2 installations of Win7 RC and 2 installations of XP on this machine and they don't have this problem.

I investigated this problem further. It only happens when the taskbar is on the left of the screen. It does not happen if the taskbar is on the right, top, or bottom. Normally when the taskbar is hidden, there is still a 2 pixel wide remnant of it that is visible. Apparently when the mouse pointer is over this remnant, the O.S. is triggered to un-hide the taskbar.

When the taskbar is on the left with auto-hide, and I do a "switch user" and come back, that 2 pixel remnant is not there. I need to get it back by pressing the "Windows" key.

It might seem like a simple hardware problem or incompatibility, but it is not that simple. Win7 RC and XP running on this machine don't have the problem. Very strange. The Win7 RC and Win7 RTM use the same display driver.

Edited November 9, 2009 by steve17

[DonDamm]

I don't have an answer, but have also noticed some unreliable behavior of the Taskbar. I run the Taskbar at the top so I don't have to move my mouse as much. I would use auto-hide and even liked it, but unfortunately MS ignored my suggestion to desensitize the first 2+ inches on the right and left. I can become annoying otherwise and is why many many people don't use it.

The problem: the Quick Launch bar (this can be set manually in W7) just doesn't seem to want to stay. After a one or more reboots it just disappears and requires restting. this is majorly annoying particularly when it is on a client's machine. the problem seems confined to x86 versions as my x64 version displays no such instability. I've observed this behavior on some five other machines running x86 so far, both in English and German, pre-installed and installed by me. Further, when reset it alphabetizes and so reorders the thing - another supreme annoyance. On one machine I added a 01, 02, 03, ... etc to maiintain the order and that seemed to help the other problem for a while, but did not cure it - only delayed it. That I've seen this on several machine both purchased and self-built leads me to believe it is a genuine bug and probably related to your problem, steve17.

[steve17]

Apparently my taskbar problems are related to Aero, and they are apparently graphics hardware specific. My graphics hardware is on my Intel DG43NB motherboard. The Microsoft boys couldn't reproduce it on their computers so could not fix it.

By trial and error, I found that when I unchecked "Enable desktop composition" in the Performance Options window, the taskbar bugs went away. My taskbar and windows are no longer translucent. No longer do the desktop icons, etc. peek through the taskbar and annoy me. I like it better this way. Maybe I'm missing something, but as long as I don't know what I'm missing, I'm happy.

I understand the annoyance of accidentally unhiding wide taskbars at the side of the screen. For that reason I don't put it at the right side. I find that it's not much of a problem at the left side. It happens occasionally, but the convenience is worth it. I don't have my windows full screen. I stretch out browser windows to almost full, but no quite. Maybe that's the reason I don't have much trouble accidentally unhiding.

With Win7's magic taskbar (grouping etc.) there is less advantage to a wide taskbar then there was in XP. The two things that benefit from a wide taskbar are the quick launch, and the notification area. Since I've learned to use the magic taskbar, I don't install quick launch any more. Maybe I'll try it again sometime. I did use it with Win7 beta and didn't notice any problems. But that was running on old hardware that didn't support Aero.

[DonDamm]

Hmm. The machines I've noticed the behavior on sport a range of graphics chips from Intel to nVidia to ATI Radeon cards. Though, I have heard that a conflict with some nVidia chipsets could be the cause of some wireless networking problems I've also been having. Seems the module is unstable after a time and reverts to a 169.x.x.x address. When it does this, it is impossible to disable or otherwise make changes in the wireless config. Even the system shutdown hangs and requires a hard reboot.

[steve17]

I have now installed Win7 on a second machine. It has different graphics hardware (Radeon x1550). I see the same taskbar problems on this machine.

I have found 3 ways to cause the taskbar to shrink.

1. switch user (and come back)

2. run performance assessment

3. change the "Enable desktop composition" in the Performance Options window.

The initial taskbar conditions required are:

1. left side of screen (or right side)

2. auto-hide

3. stretched out width

4. translucent taskbar

It sure seems like a bug in the Win7 Aero to me, but since I've switched to an opaque taskbar by unchecking "Enable desktop composition", I'm happy.

I have posted two threads on a Microsoft website, but they don't seem to be very interested. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums...d1-a3a1e1c1eb1b

My experience on that website is that when I post about something that looks like a Windows bug, they either ignore it or suggest I have a driver problem.

[DonDamm]

Like you, I've installed 7 on amchine with different graphics cards, both ATI and nVidia. Also both x86 and x64. Just fielded a phone call today from a friend with 7 x64 and he likes the taskbar on top. He's lost his Quick Launch bar again. I think it is a definite bug and one they probably won't fix. They'll figure that 93.7% of all their users keep the taskbar on the bottom and only a fraction of the rest are interested in using the Quick Launch bar.

I'm thinking of writing a hack to include the item in the toolbar list. As for the reordering of the list, the only solution is to number each item with a 01, 02, 03, ... etc. That is and keep the Aero transparency. I will have to try unchecking the desktop composition and using Autohide and see if that works. Still, they're all workarounds and kluges. Definitely a bug.

[steve17]

Yep. There was a minor bug in XP when the taskbar was at the side. When it was at the bottom it would group like items. If I had multiple explorers running it would put them in one icon. When the taskbar was at the side it would not group them. If I dragged the taskbar from the side to the bottom, the items would group instantly. If I dragged it back to the side, the groups would remain. Strange. It seems they use different code depending where the taskbar is. I smell a mess there.