hidden taskbar won't unhide

Question

Used to be that when in Internet Explorer 7 full screen mode, the menu bars at the top of the screen and the taskbar below would be hidden, but would reappear individually when the cursor was moved to the top or bottom of the screen.  Now the cursor moved to the top of the screen unhides the menu bars, but the cursor moved to the bottom of the screen won't unhide the taskbar: the taskbar stays hidden.  To see & use the taskbar, I have to switch out of full screen mode.  Elsewhere, say in Windows Explorer, both bars appear in full screen mode when they ought to.  It must be something simple, but I can't find it in any of the helps.  Who knows?    My Pentium computer runs Windows XP.

inspiron_wvhpe · Answer

Right click on the taskbar and click properties and check the box saying keep the taskbar on top of other windows click ok to exit out.

You can also exit out of full screen mode by pressing F11

Inspiron 1501

MK36 AMD Turion

2 GB RAM

ATI 200MSeries

Broon51 · Answer

Yes, I had that box checked--of course not in full screen mode because there's no taskbar to click on.  With the normal (not full) screen there's no problem: the taskbar is always there no matter where the cursor is.  The problem is with full screen mode only & only in Internet Explorer 7.

inspiron_wvhpe · Answer

When I went into full-screen mode you can only access the controls at the top of the screen and not the taskbar at the top. I looked at some websites and they also say you can only access the top controls when moused over. If you want to access the taskbar when in full-screen the way I found was just to press the Windows key.

Broon51 · Answer

I think you must be right & that my memory of unhiding the taskbar in IE7 is just one of those things.  True, it's not all that hard to switch back & forth w/f11; but the unhiding taskbar seems so obvious a convenience, I wonder why Microsoft didn't put it in.  Thanks for the research & instruction.

JRosenfeld · Answer

Pressing Windows key does show taskbar when IE 7 is in full screen mode. But then you should left click anywhere on the desktop to make the taskbar hide again, before F11 will get you out of full screen mode.

Broon51 · Answer

Thank you for this very useful discovery.  I just looked in the Microsoft support site under keyboard shortcuts & it's not there, although the display of the start menu with the logo key is.

JRosenfeld · Answer

As you say pressing the Winlogo key is the Windows keyboard shortcut to open the start menu. But if the taskbar is hidden it then also brings up the taskbar (in order to show the start button and its menu). Hence its use for IE 7 full screen.

Windows General

hidden taskbar won't unhide

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