a really dumb question, buttons on the taskbar....

hey all sorry to waste your time with something so mundane, but i've got a little bit of a problem with the task bar. it seems that every time i open an application, the button doesn't show up on the task bar. and then, when i minimize an open window, that window magically disappears, i.e. the task bar is still there, but there is no button for the window that was just minimized.. i'm running windows xp, i have tried to go to the taskbar properties section. i have tried rebooting. i have gone to the windows and dell help sites to no avail.
one side note: if i open up the task manager, the programs are still running, but for some reason, they just don't want to show up on the taskbar.
any insight would be greatly appreciated! thanks!

 

Hmmm...have you moved or resized anything on the taskbar?

You might try right-clicking on it, and un-checking Lock The Taskbar...
Once that's done, you can re-size the quick launch and any other toolbars you might have...

Hmm... that really shouldn't hide your minimized windows, though. There's nothing to lose by trying it, though.

 

tried that but no dice. any other suggestions?

 

When you have several windows open, does alt+tabbing through them work?

 

yes, ALT + TAB works just fine.

i'm off to work now, but if you have any other ideas, please post them, and thanks for your help.

 

I'm afraid I don't know how to further advise you w/o resorting to something drastic...
Oh, except maybe a repair installation...that might not be too bad. if you're interested, just let me know

I would wait for someone else to try to help you first, though.

 

thanks for your help. i still haven't been able to figure out what's going on. what is a 'repair installation' by the way? beyond the very basics, i'm a bit of a computer idiot, i'm ashamed to say.

 

Try taskbar repair tool plus:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4307

It should fix this issue.

 

thank you so much!! that did the trick!

 

Glad it helped!

 

No, don't be ashamed! Everybody has to start somewhere...Heh, I enrolled in a Computer Network Engineering program without knowing what BIOS was, so I had alot of catching up to do to get to where the rest of the class was.

To answer your question, a repair install is a partial re-installation (ie hard drive isn't completely wiped) of the operating system. Ideally, it restores all the normal functions of the windows operating system.