Auto-hide Taskbar won't unhide

Question

When my taskbar hides it never comes back when I hover over it. I can only get it back by pressing the "Windows" button on the keyboard. Very annoying, but I can still use the system.

I have my taskbar on the left-side of my screen. I have Windows XP. I do not use Google Chrome. Pressing F11 twice has no effect. I read this post and it didn't seem to have any answers.

Anyone find a fix?

Answer 1

I do believe this is an OS bug which has made it into every Windows version since (at least) XP. It's also difficult to reliably reproduce but does affect numerous people according to Google, myself included, which is one of the reasons why I always end up disabling it shortly thereafter.

You could try one of the following, albeit neither is a clean nor permanent solution:

• Press the Windows key + D to minimize all open programs. Afterwards the taskbar may react normally again.
• Kill and restart Explorer via Task Manager. To restart Explorer from within Task Manager:
  File -> New Task -> explorer.exe -> OK

Answer 2

Consider switching to Linux. Ubuntu is free and auto-hide always works quite well. You can still run most Windows applications using the Windows Emulator (WinE).