my taskbar is eating my screen! help!!!

Hello- I just discovered this sitea few days ago and have been having a great time digging in, checking it out- but I have a major disaster on my hands and am hoping someone can help:

Somehow- I don't know what caused it- my taskbar has become enlarged- It takes up about the bottom 2/5 of my screen and I do not have auto-hide enabled. Unfortunately, I cannot change the settings because when I open the dialog box at "start/settings/control panel/start menu and taskbar" the dialog box is a fix size and shape and the bottom half of it, which contains the OK/apply/cancel buttons, is hidden behind the task bar! A real catch-22.

It seems that I should be able to manually change the height just by moving my cursor to the top line of the taskbar until the double arrows appear and then dragging the top down, but no double arrow appears.

As it is, I am really hamstrung with this. I am not a programmer/hacker/techie-guy- just a regualr dude who enjoys using my PC for news and music and streaming audio and the like. Learning a bit more all the time and hope to become a lot more knowledgeable but this has got my stumped. Can anyone out there help me?

thanks- Dave

 

Which version of Windows? Any other system info?

 

d'oh! right.... I'm using Windows ME on an HP pavilion 7920 with an intel celeron processor that is about three years old. I haven't made any significant changes to the system other than what you'd expect of a non-tech user over three years. I upgraded to 512 mb Ram (from the 128 that it came with and added a LAN card. I use Norton systemworks to keep the system relatively clean and also use ad-aware and spyware s&d regularly.

This enlargement of the taskbar occurred a few weeks ago for reasons yet unknown to me. It's kind of inconvenient but I lived with it. Auto-hide was enabled until this evening when I accidentally disabled it and now it's "stuck."

Anything else I can tell you?

thanks again!

 

Unless I'm missing something, just right click on the taskbar, select "unlock taskbar" and then drag the taskbar down, like you tried to do earlier. The double arrows should appear.


Then, you can lock it back when you are done, so this won't happen again!

PS You can also do this with your browser, and move things all over until it's layed out the way you like it. Then, you can lock it down by right clicking!

 

I think I'm the one missing something. When I right click on the taskbar, that is not one of the options that appears. There are toolbar options, and tile/cascade options as well as date/time adjustments. I can also click properties (which would solve the problem if I could see the whole dialog box when it comes up, but I can't.)

do this with my browser? How? I don't understand what you meant here, but believe me, once I get this fixed it'll never happen again!

 

Place your cursor on the titlebar, hold down the left-click button on your mouse, and pull the whole window up until the dialog box is above the taskbar, the uncheck the lock taskbar button and click the Apply then the OK buttons

 

dmahlin, I run WinME also. The only place that I can find "lock the toolbars" is:

1. Click view on top toolbar>toolbars>"lock the toolbars" either has a tick by it or not. If it is ticked they are locked, if not they are not.

2. Right click on the top toolbar> "lock the toolbars" yada yada.

I played around with this and recreated your problem on my box and fixed it just as eclayton described, only I right clicked on the top toolbar.

 

The problem is that, in trying to move the dialog box up, I my cursor and the top (blue title bar) of the dialog box hits the upper edge of the screen before the apply button is seen. Is there a way to move the dialog box up without having my cursor on the title bar?

Thanks for the reply, though....

 

thank you for your input. I have "lock toolbars" on my top toolbar menu also. It is currently unlocked. This appears to apply to the top toolbars only, has no effect on the taskbar on the bottom.

To further clarifiy, by bottom taskbar is tall enough to hold about 10 "address boxes" ( this thingies that you right click on to mx/min/close/etc) stacked on top of each other. My screen is about 13" wide by 9 1/2" tall. My toolbars (top) take up 2" and my task bar which should only take up about 1/4" is actually 4 1/4" tall. so I am wrtiting this isn a window that is less than 3" tall. Making the internet and many non-web applications useless in the parts of most dialog boxes cannot be seen.

 

My bad, I didn't realize it was different with ME. Sorry about that.

As far as your browser, I was just saying you can right click on your browser, or top toolbar, as it might be properly called, select "unlock toolbar" and then move your cursor until it changes to the double arrows, and move your browser up and down, or move the address bar or your icons, or whatever, but since you have ME, I'm not even sure that this applies.
I was trying to add a little bit of info, and ended up adding more confusion. Sorry about that.

 

Here's a shot in the dark...get that window open, hit F11...does the "apply" button become visible? If so, do what you need to do, then hit F11 again to take it put it back. F11 should make put the dialog box in full screen.

 

Sounds to me that you might have the screen resolution, font & size set to big and might need to shrink it down so your open tasks will fit on the screen, then follow the other replies on changing the taskbar problem.

Just a shot in the dark......

 

Locking the toolbars in Internet Explorer has nothing to do with a problem with the Windows taskbar. If you cannot get the double-ended arrow to appear when you hover over the top edge of the taskbar, and cannot right-click on a blank area of the taskbar and uncheck "Lock the Taskbar", then something in your registry settings may have become corrupted. A possible solution at that point may be to do a System Restore back to a point where you know it was working properly.

Also note: if you can right-click on the taskbar and choose Properties, and can see and check/uncheck the Hide the Taskbar and/or Lock the Taskbar boxes, you can simply hit Enter to set the choices-- you don't have to press the OK or Apply button.

 

nothing to be sorry for- I appreciate the input!

 

That sounds like a possibility- Could you perhaps walk me through this process? I've never monkeyed around with these settings before but if it does the job- just so I can see the full dialog box to change that taskbar setting, then I'll change it back. As far as I know, I still have all the default settings in effect.

 

I may have to do that although it makes me nervous. Do I run the risk of losing files, etc. if I do this? The goes-without-saying importance of regular backups notwithstanding, Do you recommend I backup files before doing this? And will the "system recovery" CDs that came with my PC do this? I beleive they will restore my system to the way it was when I bought it- Will they wipe files and programs that did not come loaded on the machine?

That option does not exist- but thank you for your input just the same!

 

NOT the System Recovery disk that came with your computer-- System Restore is a feature of Windows ME (and XP) that allows you to set your computer's configuration back to an earlier, working state if something messes it up. System Restore is not destructive to data files. A System Recovery disk is.

A System Recovery disk is a last-ditch effort when your computer won't run and nothing else works. It wipes your hard drive and returns your computer to the state it was in when you first took it out of the box. You don't want to use it in this case.

 

In WindowsME, the option to lock the taskbar in Taskbar Properties is under the Advanced tab in a scrolling window. Try this: Click and hold on a blank area of your currently over-sized taskbar and see if you can drag it over to the right side of the screen, making it a wide vertical taskbar. Then right-click on it and choose Properties, and hopefully, the dialog box wll be completely accessible.

 

AAAARRGGGHHHH!!!!!!

I just discovered I can't print anything either.

Same reason- the print dialog box is partially obscured- covering the all important print button at the bottom.

 

Or, if you feel comfortable editing the Windows registry: Click on Start -> Run , and type regedit and click OK. Navigate the left pane to :
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced and look for an icon in the right pane named TaskbarSizeMove. Right-click on TaskbarSizeMove, and choose Modify. Change the value to 1, and click OK. Exit the Registry editor, and log off and back on, or reboot for changes to take effect.

 

It sounds like this may be the ticket. How do I access this feature? I went to the control panel but didn't see it. Could you give me the steps?

And when this is all over, how do I make contribution to this site?

 

I have to leave for work pretty soon but I appreciate everyone's help. I'll try this tonight when I get home. Thanks.

 

See my last suggestion at the bottom of page one of this thread first-- it would be simpler.

 

Stick around, learn, and then you can start lending a helping hand every so often. Most of us here had to learn from scratch, and I myself am still very new at all this. So, I mostly just read the threads and try to learn, and when there's something I can contribute, I add my 2 cents worth! That's about all they want as far as contribution. That, and telling others about this site!

 

I tried this, exactly as you outlined. It did not change the setting but my computer is now in Safe Mode ( I think) or something that looks like it. Basically all my fonts are enlarged and my screen resolution is very poor- making everything even harder to read. I did notice that when I got to the point where I changed the value to 1 (from 0), there was a choice of (damn, I can't remember- it was 9 hours ago) numeric and... something else. the "somthing else" was checked and I left it that way. Should I have changed it? And how do I get out of Safe Mode, or whatever this is?

 

Is that the system restore? How do I do that?

I'm in dire straits now.

 

AAAAHHHHH.................

Shortly after my last post, I was moving the cursor around, doing something, I dunno what, when I caught a glimpse of the fabled double arrow as it passed the top of the taskbar. Could it be....? Yes! I was able to resize it and lock on the auto hide. I guess I misundertodd what your "regedit" instructions would accomplish.

The "safemode" problem I though I had was really just an incorrect videomode that got selected somehow. It's been fixed and everything is as it should be.

Many thanks to all who responded. I hope I'll be able to "pay it forward" at some point in the future!

 

(Loud cheering from everyone)

Yippee!! Hooray!! Way to Go!!



Glad you got it figured out! Hope to see you again, but not with such a frustrating problem.

Oh, and thanks for letting us know you got it fixed. It's nice to hear good news.

Eric