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Windows 11 | Windows Explorer is Causing the Taskbar to just turn black and restarting it doesnt resolve anything.

Anonymous
2025-04-24T23:55:36+00:00

The Windows Explorer in my Dell XPS was slow to load and was giving error messages. To try to resolve the issue I restarted my computer as it had worked previously. Instead, once the computer had rebooted my taskbar was gone and was just replace with a blackbar. I tried restarting one more time and the result was the same except the taskbar was gone. Hovering the cursor over where it usually is results in a loading cursor and clicking in the area freezes my computer for a few minutes.

Some online forums said to restart explorer.exe from the Task Manager which I tried without much luck. I've tried going though DISM as well without much luck. I cannot access my settings or any apps not on my Desktop and several processes to do with my taskbar have been suspended according to Task Manager. I've also tried to reboot in Safe Mode/BIOS.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-05-01T05:11:40+00:00

    The issues completely resolved after the drive is unplugged. It seems to be an issue with the external storage drive so I will be attempting to troubleshoot it. Thank you for your help!

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  2. John DeV 163.8K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2025-04-26T06:31:46+00:00

    Can you try completely removing the said drive and see if the issue persists? The drive may have a hardware issue and may be damaged.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-04-25T23:59:30+00:00

    Hi, good day! I'm John Dev a Windows user like you and I'll be happy to assist you today. I know this has been difficult for you, Rest assured, I'm going to do my best to help you.

    When was the last time it worked properly?

    Please try the following methods below.

    **Press Windows key+R to open Run then type:

    shell:recent\AutomaticDestinations

    press Enter
    Delete the contents of the resulting folder
    Kindly do the same on the path below

    shell:recent\CustomDestinations

    After that, restart your computer
    Note: This will remove the shortcuts in Quick Access but not the actual files

    **Perform a Clean Boot
    Determine whether a background program or a software conflict is causing the issue.

    Press Windows key+R to open Run then type: msconfig
    Press Enter
    Select System Configuration > go to the Services tab.
    (Important) Select and make sure to put a check mark on "Hide all Microsoft services"
    Click Disable all.
    Go to Startup tab > Open Task Manager > Disable all the unnecessary services running there. Restart your computer.

    Please check the support article at the link below for more details.
    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-t...

    Kindly let me know if this helps or if you have any further concerns by clicking the "Reply" button at the end of my response. I will appreciate it.

    Kind regards,

    John DeV
    Independent Advisor

    The glitching only began yesterday in the late morning. My computer worked perfectly fine in the early morning. Thank you for the help, but unfortunately Im completely unable to open 'Run.' No shortcuts that involve my 'Win' key work and opening my File explorer even through the Task Manager causes it to crash and my computer to completely black out. I was able to briefly get my taskbar back this morning by using a system file check and restarting my computer, but I clicked on my file explorer which crashed and restarting it through task manager caused the glitching UI to begin again.

    Edit:I was disassembling my computer to clean it to see if somehow letting it cycle through would let it work. While doing so I found an old external storage I had plugged in and forgot about. I've been testing it and it seems like something about this drive is causing issues. I don't understand what, or why it only started being an issue now but I will be testing to see if the drive just has to be completely removed.

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  4. John DeV 163.8K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2025-04-25T01:30:00+00:00

    Hi, good day! I'm John Dev a Windows user like you and I'll be happy to assist you today. I know this has been difficult for you, Rest assured, I'm going to do my best to help you.

    When was the last time it worked properly?

    Please try the following methods below.

    **Press Windows key+R to open Run then type:

    shell:recent\AutomaticDestinations

    press Enter

    Delete the contents of the resulting folder

    Kindly do the same on the path below

    shell:recent\CustomDestinations

    After that, restart your computer

    Note: This will remove the shortcuts in Quick Access but not the actual files

    **Perform a Clean Boot

    Determine whether a background program or a software conflict is causing the issue.

    Press Windows key+R to open Run then type: msconfig

    Press Enter

    Select System Configuration > go to the Services tab.

    (Important) Select and make sure to put a check mark on "Hide all Microsoft services"

    Click Disable all.

    Go to Startup tab > Open Task Manager > Disable all the unnecessary services running there. Restart your computer.

    Please check the support article at the link below for more details.

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-t...

    Kindly let me know if this helps or if you have any further concerns by clicking the "Reply" button at the end of my response. I will appreciate it.

    Kind regards,

    John DeV

    Independent Advisor

    Was this answer helpful?

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