Taskbar has disappeared!

Hi, I just joined this forum b/c all of a sudden my taskbar disappeared. I stupidly dowloaded a free trial of a game from bigfishgames.com and when the trial ran out, I uninstalled it. Well, I don't think the uninstall was complete because the shortcut is still on my desktop although it's not on my control panel>uninstall menu.

Well anyway, since I tried the uninstall my taskbar is gone. It's not an auto-hide error, I checked. I ran a Norton Anti-Virus Scan and ntohing came up. My windows start icon is still there, just nothing on the taskbar.

I can find open windows from task manager, but that's it. I can't see my internet status, battery power, NOTHING.

How do I get this back??????????

Please help...

Hi Carmen,

Welcome to Vista Forums.

I would recommend doing a System Restore using a restore point dated before you installed the Game. It should restore the Taskbar for you.

System Restore - How to

Since you do have Norton AV installed on your computer, I would not rule that out as a possible problem or future problem either. I have had alot people report problems with it and Vista.

Shawn

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I'm going to try the system restore option. I get a little leary though b/c I'm not computer illiterate but...I'm not exactly a tech genius either.

I'm curious what you meant about the Norton AV causing problems?

Carmen,

It's ok. Doing a System Restore is pretty easy to do.

Norton AV has been reported over and over to not be completely compatible with Vista. The main problem it causes is with Windows Mail getting stuck messages. Hopefully you will not see any of these if they have updated Norton, but if something related to security goes haywire I would look at that as a possibility.

Shawn

Right-click on the taskbar, and select properties. Go to the "Notification Area" tab. Is the "Hide inactive icons" box checked? If it is you can either turn that option off so that icons are never hidden, or click the "<" arrow on the taskbar to show the icons that are missing...

I did a system restore and my taskbar is back!! HOORAY!!!

However, now my Symantec (Not Norton...although they are from the same parent company??) won't turn on. When I enable auto protect, nothing happens. I try to go to the Windows security window and turn the anti-virus on that way...and...nothing happens. Any ideas why??

Carmen,

I'm glad to hear that your taskbar is back.

If you would like to keep Symantec's Norton AV, you can try uninstalling it, then reinstall it to see if that will get it working again for you. If you have problems uninstalling it, then use the Norton Removal tool.

Download and run the Norton Removal Tool


If you would like to use a great free alternative antivirus program instead, Avast is a good choice.

Free antivirus - avast! 4 Home Edition

Shawn

I have NO IDEA where my symantec disk is so i'm a little nervous to uninstall. I was once told that Norton products have a way of hiding bits of themselves all over the computer making it incredibly difficult to completely uninstall. Is this the case even with the Norton removal tool?

Norton is the worst program you can put on a PC. It creates more problems then it solves...

Carmen,

The Norton removal tool, should (or suppose to ) get rid of all those little left overs if the normal uninstall fails for some reason. Usually the left overs from programs are the user's personal settings for that program.

Shawn