How to Fix ‘Taskbar won’t Hide’ in Windows 7?
Windows 7 has been one of the most popular operating systems released by Microsoft. It is popular for its simplicity and great performance. It has countless features that make the user’s experience smoother. The taskbar is located at the bottom of the window and it can be used to pin some applications’ shortcuts to access them quickly. Also, it contains the start menu icon to access some other features of the computer.
There is a feature where the user can configure the taskbar to hide automatically when the focus is on the other parts of the screen. However, quite recently, a lot of reports have been coming in where users have been complaining that the taskbar doesn’t hide automatically. In this article, we will suggest some solutions to fix the issue and also inform you about the reasons due to which it is triggered.
What Prevents the Taskbar from Hiding?
After receiving numerous reports from multiple users, we decided to investigate the issue and devised a set of solutions to fix it completely. Also, we looked into the reasons due to which it is triggered and listed them as follows.
- Notifications: It is possible that there might be a notification from Microsoft help or from any other application in the Notifications Area due to which the taskbar is being prevented from hiding.
- Windows Explorer: In some cases, the Windows Explorer might be glitched and it might be interfering with the taskbar’s autohide function.
- Network and Sharing Centre: The Network and Sharing Centre is used to configure certain network settings. It was observed in some cases that if the Centre was open in the background while using the computer, the autohide feature of the taskbar wasn’t working properly.
- Rogue Application: It is possible that one or more of the applications installed on the computer might be preventing the taskbar from hiding automatically. Some old applications are configured to constantly send messages to Windows to prevent taskbar from hiding, this is done to show the user notifications from the application’s developer.
Now that you have a basic idea of the nature of the problem, we will move on towards the solutions. Make sure to implement these in the specific order in which they are presented to avoid conflict.
Solution 1: Clearing Notifications
If there is any notification in the notification panel that is located on the bottom right of the screen, it is recommended that you clear that notification and check to see if the issue persists. Some notifications, especially the ones from Microsoft, prevent the taskbar from hiding automatically.
Solution 2: Closing Applications
It is important that you close all applications that are running in the background and check to see if the issue persists. The problem can also be caused due to a service running in the background, in order to identify the application or the service that is causing the problem, conduct a clean boot by following this article.
Solution 3: Unlocking Taskbar
In some cases, it is possible that the taskbar might be locked, If the taskbar is locked the autohide feature doesn’t work. Therefore, in this step, we will be unlocking the taskbar. For that:
- Right–click on the taskbar at the bottom.
- Click on the “Lock the Taskbar” button if there is a tick behind it.
Clicking on the “Lock the Taskbar” button - This will unlock the taskbar, check to see if the issue persists.
Solution 4: Restarting Explorer
In most cases, the issue is caused due to a glitched version of Windows Explorer running in the background. Therefore, it is recommended that you restart the explorer. In order to do that:
- Press “Windows” + “R” keys simultaneously to open the Run prompt.
- Type in “taskmgr” and press “Enter” to open the task manager.
Opening Task Manager - Click on the “Processes” tab on the top.
- Right-click on the “Windows Explorer” entry and select “End Task“.
Clicking on the End Task Button - Click on the “File” option on the top and select “Run a New Task”.
- Type in “explorer.exe” and press “Enter“.
Typing explorer.exe and pressing enter - Check to see if the issue persists.
