No Taskbar, Start Button, Or Taskbar/start Menu Properties?
Aug 13, 2012
Yesterday, the task bar and Start button mysteriously disappeared.I've also found that the "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties" windowdoesn't come up. There are two places to click on in Control Panelthat should bring up this window, but it doesn't. The Control Panelborder changes color as if something is starting to happen, but thennothing happens, possibly indicating that some program starts to runbut then finds something wrong and exits. I didn't see anythinginteresting in the error logs. The desktop icons appear normally.The problem exists only when logging onto my son's account. When Ilog on as administrator, the task bar and Start button appearnormally.The usual tricks don't work: Ctrl+ESC, or bringing up Task Manager andtrying to rerun explorer.exe. I tried sfc to check for corruptedfiles, but none turned up. I ran an AVG scan and it did find one fileit considered a threat, which it removed, but that didn't solve theproblem.
I found a web site that referred to the registrykeyHKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorerwhich has a NoSetTaskbar value that can be used to disable the"Taskbar and Start Menu Properties" window. On the administratorlogin, the Explorer subkey is there all right, but doesn't haveNoSetTaskbar. (It does have NoDriveTypeAutoRun.) But when I log ontomy son's account, the Policies key had no subkeys at all. I triedadding an Explorer subkey without adding any values, but this didn'tsolve the problem. I haven't yet tried adding a NoDriveTypeAutoRunvalue, but since this seems to pertain to AutoPlay it didn't seemrelevant to this problem.Any thoughts as to what might be going on or what might fix it?
So about a month ago I restarted my computer and when it came back on all my programs pinned to my task bar and everything that was in my start menu was gone. From there I could not unlock the taskbar and nothing would pin in either the start menu or taskbar. I researched everywhere about it. I tried unlocking the taskbar in properties and registry with no luck. I finally found some posts about how my user profile was corrupt and from there I went on and made a new profile and copied everything and BOOM it all worked fine now. Well today it happened AGAIN! I restarted my computer and everything disappeared. So I think it is still a corrupt profile, but this is the second time it has happened.
I have a client that has laptop with windows 7 Pro. He had a faulty network card, so I have added a new, usb network card. That said, He can not pin anything to taskbar or start menu. I cleared both folders of shortcuts(567 of them) but to no avail. He also has no options under his desktop Context menu for New. He is also using a roaming profile, of which I will disable next time I am there. I have a feeling that might be the issue. I did scour the internet trying all the usual suggestions, but do vaguely remember something about an entry in cache somewhere that if it is too big or corrupt, it could cause this behavior. I am unable to find that post anywhere now.I mention the network card because one post had taskbar issues until he disabled his faulty network card. I have disabled the faulty network card.
When I start up my computer, my Steam starts up, then I manually start Chrome. Chrome comes up fine, Steam does too, but when I try to right click on Steam and click friends, all it does is create another steam process running at 100-108 K. Then if I close Chrome and try to reopen it, it will do the same. This happens with EVERY program after I start up. There's a 5 second window where I can open programs without issue, then after that it will only start 108 K copies of them. It takes me around 30 restarts just to get it working properly, if not more.
All my desktop icons are missing, no start button or task bar.The only way I can access my computer is via safe mode.Two things happened this morning so I am not sure which one is the culprit. Firstly I had an update from Java.Then I shut my computer down and went to bed.During the night, my UPS board starting beeping. We were having power problems, I think a brown out.The power went out completely then all my other electronics like my tv, kettle, washing machine etc, starting working properly again.So I can't say whether it was the power problem that has caused this or the Java update. I have done a system restore which didn't help. I have done Windows+R and typed in 'explorer.exe"..which only gave me a black screen. I have run all antivirus programs and nothing is being picked up.
I know that the full version can be achieved while holding the shift key, but is there way to bypass that and have the regular full sized menu by default?
Registry Hacks To Customize Windows 7 & Vista Start Menu & TaskBar Useful links: Ultimate Windows Tweaker - Features PC Tools Registry Guide Back Up, Restore, aintain the Windows 7 & Vista Registry While there are several freeware Windows Tweaking Utilities , like the freeware portable Ultimate Windows Tweaker ,available, there are some who just love to tinker with the Registry. This article is for those such. Most ot these tweaks are applicabe to Windows 7 too. Do remember that it is risky touching the registry and as such do back up the registry and / or create a system restore point first.To customize your start menu options, you have to modify the DWORD value data and set it to either 0 or 1. To modify the value data, you rt click on the name and select modify.
Then in the value data box, you set its numeric valueetting the value of respective DWORD to 1, means that it will have the effect as described in the Value NameSetting the value of respective DWORD to 0, means that it will have the OPPOSITE effect as described in the Value Name.If the DWORD ValueNames do not exist, you will have to create them. To create them, rt click in any blank space in RHS Panel > New >Dword value.The following are some of the recognized DWORDValueNames.NoTrayItemsDisplay : Hides the Task Bar notification areaNoToolbarsOnTaskbar : Do not display any custom toolbars in the taskbar QuickLaunchEnabled : Enable QuickLaunch bar display in the TaskBarNoSimpleStartMenu : Disabling it will force the Classic Start Menu NoStartMenuPinnedList : RemovePinned Programs list from the Start Menu NoStartMenuMorePrograms : Remove �All Programs� list from the Start menu NoStartMenuMyGanes : Remove Games from Start Menu NoStartMenuMyMusic : Remove Music from Start Menu NoStartMenuNetworkPlaces : Remove Network from Start Menu NoTaskGrouping : Prevent grouping of Task Bar items HideClock : Hides from the Task Bar notification area NoSMBalloonTip : Remove Balloon Tips on Start Menu items NoAutoTrayNotify : Turn off Task Bar area cleanup notification LockTaskbar : Lock the Taskbar and prevents the User from moving or resizing it NoSearchCommInStartMenu : If enabled Start Menu search will not search for Communications. NoSearchProgramsInStartMenu : If enabled Start Menu search will not search for Programs. NoSearchInternetInStartMenu : If enabled Start Menu search will not search for Internet History NoSearchFilesInStartMenu : If enabled Start Menu search will not search for Files This list is not exhaustive. You can simply study the registry key's DWORD's, illustrated above and see that there would be many more such tweaks or hacks available. The ValueNames are roughly indicative of what they would do.
Take the example of NoRun. Its value is set at 0. If you open Taskbar & Start Menu Properties > Star Menu Tab > Start Menu > Customize. You will see a checkbox to Add Run command to the Start Menu. But if you now go back to regedit, and change the DWORD of NoRun to 1, and now go back to the Start Menu properties box, you will see that the item to Add Run itself will be missing ! So, enabling or disabling such options through Vista Registry, will allow or prohibits users, from executing such actions through the Properties box. Incidentally, there used to be a Registry Restriction Tool from Microsoft, which went on to become a part of the Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit which went on to become Windows SteadyState. You may find SteadyState of interest. If you are interested in such Registry Hacks you may find this Registry Guide for Windows of immense interest. It provides an extensive range of registry tweaks, tricks & hacks for optimizing, enhancing and securing the Windows� operating systems including Vista.
I recently bought a second user machine from a colleague of mine. He re-installed Windows 7 so that everything was fresh and set up a new profile for me but I wasn't happy with the name of the profile that he had set up. Anyway to cut a long story short I created a new profile, copied the old files across and deleted the old profile I wasn't happy with.Everything is working fine and as it should be but I have a now have a couple of annoyances with a number of the programs that I have pinned to the taskbar and the start menu. For example when I pinned Firefox and Thunderbird to the taskbar it has named them as Firefox (2) and Thunderbird (2) as if they are duplicate programs/shortcuts. The same is true with some of the programs that I have pinned to the start menu. For example when I pinned CCleaner to the start menu Windows named it as CCleaner (2) even though it wasn't present in the first place. If I try to rename it to CCleaner (as it should appear) Windows tells me that there is already a program by that name pinned there and it asks me if I would like to rename it CCleaner (3).As far as I can tell it doesn't affect the performance of such programmes, its just really really frustrating. Would it have anything to do with the files that I copied across from my old profile?
Is there a way to permanently lock items on the task bar and start menu? I can for example lock the taskbar, but can still drag icons onto or from it and rearrange them. I want to lock everything permanantly so no one can screw them up. I'm using Home Premium.
If I mount a removeable media such as USB Stick or a TrueCrypt file volume (with rm option) then I cannot pin prgms from these medias/drives to the taskbar nor pin files to the Start menu. Is there really no way to disable this No-Pin-Protection? Under WinXP this worked without problems.
I just bought a Gateway computer yesterday with Windows 7 preinstalled on it, and last night I tried to wake it from sleep but when I did, it didn't show the taskbar, icons or start button. All I could see was the background. I tried the "ctrl+shift+esc" method to fix it, but when I hit those keys nothing happened. I'm at a loss, and I don't want to return the computer!
Like the title says, most of the programs listed in the start menu are gone. They can still be accessed from other places, like the task bar and shortcuts, at least most of them. I would show a picture, but I can't access Paint. The only things that remain are Mahjong, Chess, Solitaire, Purble Place and Magnifier in the main menu and under All Programs: IE, some accessories (not including paint), McAfee, Google Chrome, The startup folder, and WinRAR.
I am connecting to a remote desktop that I have been connecting to for months now but suddenly today the taskbar and start menu from the remote computer disappeared and I can only see my laptop's menu and taskbar. This means I can't get into the Computer or folders of the remote desktop as there is not a shortcut on the desktop. It is also generally annoying.
Unfortuanteyl it seems to me that Windows 7 does not accept if users want to pin folders or files which are on removeable medias (USB-Sticks, DVDs, TrueCrypt volumes,...) to the TaskBar resp. Start menu.
Essentially, upon starting up my computer, from time to time, I have no yet been able to isolate what may cause this issue, I will find that I cannot launch programs from their shortcuts in the Quick Start or Taskbar menu. As of right now I have not tried to launch said programs from the original .exe file in this scenario.I've noticed that when I try to open these programs from the Taskbar, the icon will be surrounded by a square to indicate that it is active, but, after a period of maybe 5 seconds or so, sometimes longer, it will disappear and the program will no longer look active. Opening up the task manager, the programs usually show up in the Processes under the appropriate name. Multiple instances of a program can appear, even when, under normal circumstances, multiple instances aren't allowed (such as with Firefox). The processes will usually show a static amount of memory used, like 108k for any firefox.exe in the process list, and will simply sit there until they are ended, despite the program not actually running. When this happens I generally have to restart the computer and hope it works on the restart.
I`ve got a weird problem that keeps happening. Without any errors or warningall of my Desktop Icons become frozen. I cannot activate any of them. If Ihave any windows open in the Taskbar or programmes running in the System trayI can left/right click on any of them and they all workfine(Programmes/Window Explorer/IE7 etc). I can access the Start menu andis the solution if it happens in Windows Vista but this
Auto-Hide will not take effect in Taskbar Properties when Apply button is used - even though Apply button grays out indicating change has been made. If Auto-Hide is set ON in Taskbar Properties and RESTART is performed, Auto-Hide may work one time but then TASKBAR will not hide again. This is on an HP Dv6 Notebook that came with Windows 7 installed. Auto-Hide feature used to work most of the time?
The red x icon for the close window option is cut off. Using stock skin. Probably easier to understand if you see a pic, What's caused this and how can I fix it?
I have tried and set the menu properties back to the default settings and it still doesnt work. I've looked up if there could be another problem and found out it may be a problem with the registry, however i can't get into the start menu and run the elevated command prompt so i can check it and make sure.
Is there any way of changing the default pop-up menu of the Start Button? I would like to be able to simple click on the Start Button and have the "All Programs" menu selection displayed as deault instead of having to do two clicks each time (Start Menu followed by "All Programs"
Start Menu - Add or Remove Search Button..Both of the Search buttons/links pointed at by the Red Arrow are missing in my Start Menu.Likewise, when I right-click Start/Properties, there is no "Search" by itself in the list.
I have been having a Windows 7 issue for a week now. Last week, my desktop computer had the "blue screen of death" and it sort of fixed itself and rebooted, and it seemed to be working again. However, in the past 2 days, everytime I turn on the computer, and then when the desktop pops up, and I click the start menu button, the whole desktop freezes and I can't click anywhere else. I tried going on safe mode and do a system restore, but the choices of time to reset my computer was still after the blue screen of death.It's really frustrating, because I can't turn my computer off properly anymore cause it just freezes, I can't backup my files, because it's frozen, and I can't backup in safe mode.
OS: Windows 7.Windows starts up, desktop icons and the start orb are there but not the actual task bar, but everything works fine. But I cannot see the icons on the task bar or the taskbar its self.
