New Vaio - taskbar keeps disappearing?!?

[lulu66]

Hi

I've had a Vaio VPCEH2N1E for 2 days, and I'm very impressed with it, except for one thing - the taskbar at the bottom of my screen is visible when I first turn the laptop on, but if I leave it for more than a few minutes *poof* it disappears.  I've tried troubleshooting via the www, and have searched here for answers, but nothing has worked so far.

At the moment the taskbar is set as 'locked' - which is the original setting.  Unlocking it, changing taskbar position etc doesn't seem to make any difference - I  still can't get it to show.  The only way I can get it back is to shut down completely and restart - which is a major pain!

I'd be very grateful for your advice and help... thank you!

[rich912 · Accepted solution]

Hi lulu66,

A few suggestions:

1 check that Auto- hide taskbar is not ticked.

2 If you are using a third party screen saver either remove it or change to a standard screensaver.

3 If neither of the above resolve the issue then, as a temporary solution, rather than rebooting try the following:

Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) > Open Task Manager > Processes tab.
Click "explorer.exe" > right click and select "End Process".
Click on File (top left) > New task > Type "explorer"
Click OK.

This does seem to be a common problem so hopefully Microsoft will issue a fix...

Rich

[lulu66]

Hi Rich

Your second suggestion seems to have worked - I removed the screensaver I'd added and the taskbar is back and working perfectly!  I'm a bit miffed with Sony as I assume I now can't use any third party screensavers, but que sera, sera... at least the taskbar is back.

Thanks so much for your help - I was rapidly getting to the 'stupid laptop, I'm taking it back to the shop' stage so you've saved me from that!

Kind regards,

Lulu

[rich912]

You're very welcome Lulu, but don't vent your anger on Sony - this is a Microsoft operating system problem or badly written code in the third party screensaver...:smileywink:

[lulu66]

That's a good point - I hadn't thought of it like that!

I think I can forgive Sony - this laptop is sooo much better than the HP one it replaces