TaskbarActivate – For When Your Windows Taskbar Refuses to Hide

Posted on January 14, 2008 at 7:10 am

This annoyance has plagued Windows users for years. You are the type of user who wants as much screen area as possible. So, naturally, you set your taskbar to auto-hide when you don’t need it. Perfectly sensible and reasonable. But for some reason that is inexplicable to mere mortals, there are times when your taskbar refuses to hide. There are workarounds, of course.

You can select “Properties,” un-check Auto-hide, apply, re-check it, then click OK. Or you can log-off Windows and log in again. Or you can use the Alt-Tab keyboard combination to switch between windows. But who wants to go through all that? Not me, if I can help it. Probably not you, either. So here is a solution: Visit Pierre-Marie Devigne’s page and download and install TaskbarActivate.

TaskbarActivate manages the activation and deactivation of your taskbar so that you control your taskbar. Why let programs decide whether or not you get to access your own taskbar? TaskbarActivate puts you, the human, back in the driver’s seat. It removes the annoyance of having your taskbar appear whenever you get too near the edge of the screen, thereby blocking your view.

It prevents “always-on-top” and full-screen windows from keeping it hidden when you actually want it. All in all, it gives you back a measure of control over how your taskbar actually operates. And after all, isn’t that what we want?

TaskbarActivate’s Settings Screens

Once you install the application, it will run in the background. You can access its settings by right-clicking its button in the system tray. Once you install it, make sure to go into settings and take off “Delayed Activation of the Taskbar.” Your taskbar should work fine after this.

TaskbarActivate’s features:

Manage the way taskbar window is displayed on the screen :

displayed or hidden taskbars are directly managed by TaskbarActivate.
delayed activation on mouse-over.
force activation or not with “always on top” windows.
make the taskbar always accessible even with full-screen windows.
works with dynamic screen resolution change, moving the taskbar to another edge of the screen , Windows multi-monitor.
show a highlighted line on mouse-over.
can be temporary suspended.
can have the taskbar completely hidden (no more line at the bottom of the screen).
you can choose the color for highlighting when you mouse-over the taskbar.
you can stop managing one bar if there is a problem with it.

TaskbarActivate is freeware.