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I have IE11 (version 11.0.9600.16428) open. I was running developer tools a couple hours back to debug my webpage and then I closed developer tools. Now, there is a light gray rectangular bar that says "F12 Developer Tools" that looks like a menu selection that just won't go away. Even if I change to another program, this "F12 Developer Tools" bar is in the foreground and appears over my current program. How can I make this thing go away? Clicking on it will do nothing, it does not look like it is selectable.

EDIT

Here is what it looks like. Note, I am running mspaint at the time and the developer tools still appears over the Paint application.

enter image description here

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  • Try reopening IE 11, then open F12 tools again, then do what ever you did earlier when it appears and make a select... then F12 again to close the tools. In task manager kill: iexplore.exe (all trees) explorer.exe dwm.exe Then restart them
    – Austin T French
    Apr 15, 2014 at 21:30
  • @AthomSfere - Ok, killing dwm finally got rid of this pest. Thanks for the help. I hope it doesn't return again.
    – demongolem
    Apr 15, 2014 at 21:34

2 Answers 2

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This is actually a fairly common issue. Something with a drawing not being released. I have seen nothing on how to fully prevent it, but end it the current instance one of the following will generally work:

  1. Kill the application that created the drawing
  2. Kill explorer.exe
  3. Kill DWM.exe (The aero interface essentially)

And then bring them all back.

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  • You know, maybe I just have too early a version of ie11. I will have to check when I got that one. I see at techsupportalert.com/content/… stuff about ghost images and the like.
    – demongolem
    Apr 15, 2014 at 21:42
  • I have seen so many applications do this, I am 99% sure its something in Windows/ .net. I can even recreate it on command with one home grown application
    – Austin T French
    Apr 15, 2014 at 21:45
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Restart Explorer.exe - go to Task Manager processes tab, kill explorer.exe, select Run from the menu, and type "explorer".

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  • @TravelingTechGuy Didn't work. Even as everything else disappeared when I killed explorer.exe, it lingered and survived the process kill.
    – demongolem
    Apr 15, 2014 at 21:23
  • @demongolem probably because it is iexplore.exe not explorer.exe. Explorer.exe is the Windows shell, iexplore.exe is Internet Explorer.
    – Austin T French
    Apr 15, 2014 at 21:27
  • Have you tried rebooting? Maybe some corrupt memory in the GPU.
    – Traveling Tech Guy
    Apr 15, 2014 at 21:27
  • @TravelingTechGuy I'll keep that in the back of my mind, but I would rather not reboot right now. The annoyance of this is not as great as the running processes I would lose if my computer were rebooted.
    – demongolem
    Apr 15, 2014 at 21:28
  • @AthomSfere Yes, but if I exit Internet Explorer, this annoyance still remains. It may have been caused by IE, but this problem goes beyond IE.
    – demongolem
    Apr 15, 2014 at 21:31

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