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Windows taskbar vanishing if I alt-tab out of a running game that's in borderless windowed mode. Does not happen in fullscreen mode.

Anonymous
2022-06-18T10:25:06+00:00

Hey all. I just bought a new PC and set it up and everything, but I noticed that if a game is running in borderless windowed mode in the background, and I've for example alt-tabbed to google / discord or whatever, the taskbar shows for a short duration then disappear, and instead I can view the game itself (but only where the taskbar is, since the rest of the screen is displaying google or something else). This is very annoying and it wasn't like that before, I'd love to see if anyone knows how to fix it.

Image: https://prnt.sc/tdCWgPA1XKBh

In the image you can see me writing this post for reddit with a game running in the background, but the taskbar is not showing up and instead you see a part of the game.
This issue has been really annoying for me and I've seen many people say that it's a common issue without a fix but I know that's false because it never happened on my old pc and it doesn't happen to anyone I know so please if you know how to fix it I'd love to hear it :)

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Performance and system failures

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-06-28T10:40:44+00:00

    Hi,

    Thanks for your post in Microsoft Community.

    I understand that you are having issues with the taskbar disappearing by pressing Alt+tab while running the game in windowed mode.

    Have you installed some third-party security management software?

    If so, you can try to uninstall it first, and then try the following:

    Press Win+R, enter and run msconfig, in the Services tab, hide all Microsoft services, and disable other services.

    Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open the Task Manager, go to the Startup tab, disable all startup items.

    Then restart the computer.

    Disclaimer: A “clean boot” starts Windows with a minimal set of drivers and startup programs. It helps to determine whether a background program is interfering with your game or program and to isolate the cause of a problem. 

    These steps of "clean boot" might look complicated at first glance. However, to avoid any trouble for you, please follow them in order and step-by step so that it will help you get you back on track.

    After rebooting, run the command prompt as administrator, enter and run the following command:

    Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth

DISM /Online /Cleanup-image /RestoreHealth

sfc /scannow

    Disclaimer: Running Microsoft Safety Scanner can help you check if the system is disturbed or malicious software exists. To avoid any trouble for you, please follow them step-by step and back up all your personal files first to ensure you do not lose data.

    Then restart the computer again to see if that resolves the issue.

    Please feel free to let me know how it goes.

    Kirk | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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