Can't restart explorer.exe properly: no taskbar

Hey guys,

Loving the new windows 7. For a week or so I had winamp with milkdrop (visualization plugin) running in desktop mode. Whenever I set it to this, explorer would crash, but it would give me the option to restart it right away and everything was great...

TOday I put milkdrop into desktop mode and I'm surprised it doesn't kill explorer.exe. Now this would have been perfect, BUT the visualization was very laggy so I decided to kill explorer myself through task manager. It worked, the visualization wasn't laggy anymore. However, when I try to restart explorer, the taksbar never comes back! Explorer.exe does in fact restart (i can see it in the task manager) but no start menu/taskbar. What the hell is going on?

I tried killing explorer without winamp or other running, same thing. Only way to fix is to logout and back in/restart.

HELP!

Flaviu

 

What happens when you mouse to the bottom of the screen, or hit the Windows key?

 

lol, of course I tried that... nothing happens.

 

Ctrl+Alt+Del to bring up taskman, File>>New Task, and type in explorer.exe

Been the way to bring back the taskbar since, god knows when.

 

Yes...I tried that. I told you explorer re-starts but not taskbar.

 

Try right clicking the desktop, go to personalize and on the lower left hand side there is taskbar and start menu. Go to the auto hide option, enable it (apply) and then disable it.

 

Just out of curiosity, if you create another account and log into that one, does it do the same thing?

 

Clicking on taskbar and start menu in the control panel does nothing!

Can someone just try killing their explorer and see if they can restart it?

 

It works for me. Have you tried pixelot's suggestion?

 

Nah I haven't, I don't wanna create extra junk that might not get deleted when I delete the account later.

Maybe I should mention that when I do start up explorer again (with no taskbar), it opens up a "libraries" folder or w/e, the default place when you go to browse files with windows explorer.

 

Maybe you should use something more compatible with explorer. Perhaps someone could send you a copy of theirs to test.

 

Well, what about Ctrl+Alt+Del > Task Manager to kill explorer.exe (like I assume you're doing), and then to start it back up, (still in Task Manager) go to File > New task (Run) and type explorer.exe in there.

Cheers...

 

Already suggested and done.

 

Ah, my bad. I saw his post about opening the file browser and thought that's the only way he did it.

 

It's just a simple account. Create it, see if the problem still happens, then delete the account. This is an effective way to discover if the problem is only in your profile.

 

Yea I guess I'll try that tomorrow.

 

Are you sure that you killed all instances of explorer.exe?

Try run:

taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe

and then opening explorer.exe

 

Hmm I didn't know there's more than one instance...

 

Alright, I enabled the guest account, and restarting explorer.exe works there (taskbar comes back)!! Still doesn't work in my account

HELP!

EDIT: Ok, I fixed it. Had to kill avedesk before being able to bring explorer back!