Question How can I fix my taskbar?

[Waterflopper]

Since today I couldn't use my taskbar anymore except the little arrow.
I also can't click on anything in task manager and just normal settings, I can't search anything either unless I use my arrow keys!
Does someone know how to make it work again?

 

[Colif]

Does the mouse cursor show?
does keyboard work?
WIn key + I should be settings, can you navigate in them?

did you get any updates yesterday?

does it work in safe mode?

On the logon screen, click the power button in bottom right
while holding left shift, click the restart button
will restart windows in a blue menu

• choose troubleshoot
• choose advanced
• choose startup settings
• click the restart button
• choose a safe mode (it doesn't matter which) by using number associated with it.
• Pc will restart and load safe mode

Knowing how it happened might let us know how to fix it.

You could try system restore, its in the same blue menu above as Start-up settings
it will let you roll system back provided you have a system restore date, it could fix it.

 

[Waterflopper]

Does the mouse cursor show?
does keyboard work?
WIn key + I should be settings, can you navigate in them?

did you get any updates yesterday?

does it work in safe mode?

On the logon screen, click the power button in bottom right
while holding left shift, click the restart button
will restart windows in a blue menu

• choose troubleshoot
• choose advanced
• choose startup settings
• click the restart button
• choose a safe mode (it doesn't matter which) by using number associated with it.
• Pc will restart and load safe mode

Knowing how it happened might let us know how to fix it.

You could try system restore, its in the same blue menu above as Start-up settings
it will let you roll system back provided you have a system restore date, it could fix it.

I can see my mouse cursor my keyboard also works I can't press anything in setting but I can open it by searching it and selecting it with my keyboard. I also couldn't drag my settings tab to a different location. I have tried safe mode and it didn't work and my system restore doesn't have anything old Bec I just updated to windows 11 Bec I thought that would maybe fix the problem but it did not.

 

[Colif]

So you had the problem on 10 as well?

We might need to clean install then if you updated from 10 and it still didn't fix it

What mouse/keyboard are they? are they wired? its odd windows won't work in safe mode. Shows its not a driver.

on another PC, download the media creation tool, 2nd link here - https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11 and use it to make a WIn 11 Installer on USB

since you can't do much at all in windows and safe mode isn't much better, I can at least show you how to back up anything on PC you want to save, mostly data like documents, pictures, movies

log back into the blue menu again

• choose troubleshoot
• choose advanced
• choose command prompt
• type notepad and press enter
• in notepad, select file>open
• Use file explorer to copy any files you need to save to USB or another hdd

Once you copied anything you need to save off PC, I would clean install win 11 and see if it fixes it... it should.
follow this guide: https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/how-to-do-a-clean-installation-of-windows-10.3170366/
its mostly the same as 10.

 

[Waterflopper]

So you had the problem on 10 as well?

We might need to clean install then if you updated from 10 and it still didn't fix it

What mouse/keyboard are they? are they wired? its odd windows won't work in safe mode. Shows its not a driver.

on another PC, download the media creation tool, 2nd link here - https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11 and use it to make a WIn 11 Installer on USB

since you can't do much at all in windows and safe mode isn't much better, I can at least show you how to back up anything on PC you want to save, mostly data like documents, pictures, movies

log back into the blue menu again

• choose troubleshoot
• choose advanced
• choose command prompt
• type notepad and press enter
• in notepad, select file>open
• Use file explorer to copy any files you need to save to USB or another hdd

Once you copied anything you need to save off PC, I would clean install win 11 and see if it fixes it... it should.
follow this guide: https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/how-to-do-a-clean-installation-of-windows-10.3170366/
its mostly the same as 10.

i uninstalled windows and downloaded again while keeping all my files, and after it was done its fixed.

 

[Colif]

Well, glad you fixed it at least.

A repair install might have done same thing but without anyway to access menus, you lucky that worked.