Help finding my clock in Windows 8

I am working on my hubbys PCand I am trying to find his clock and all the icons that rest beside it. He is running Windows 8 and he wants to up grade to Windows 10 but I need to find the icons beside his clock to do so. I have the start button in the bottom left hand corner but nothing else across the bottom. No clock no icons and no task bar. They show up every once in a while but not often and only for a few seconds. Any ideas how I can get them to show up again?

 

It sounds like autohide taskbar is checked. Hold the mouse cursor at the bottom of the screen until the taskbar appears, and when it does right click it. Click Properties and if there is a check in Auto-hide the taskbar then uncheck it.

 

Yes my thoughts exactly. So I did check that and it was set to hide but when I set it to un-hide all it did was put the round windows menu in the left corner but nothing else.

 

I'm running Windows 7 but it should be similar for Windows 8.
Open Control Panel > Notification Area icons > Turn system icons on or off. Ensure all the icons are set to On.

 

Of course, there is no round button in the bottom left hand corner of Win 8 so I'm guessing that a third party start menu may have previously been installed. If Eldon's suggestion doesn't fix it I would try uninstalling the start menu. It could be Classic Shell, Start Menu 8, Pokki or any of a number of others available for download.

 

Thank y'all both so much, I will try them both and let y'all know what happens.

I am terribly sorry for not responding sooner, I some how or another got my neck out of wack and had a headache for like 4 or 5 days and could not function much. Please forgive me.