System tray disappeared

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Co-worker was doing something on a friends laptop and has managed to lose the system tray – can’t get to the Start button. Running Win2K. Need to know how to find it again.

The difference between Genius and Stupidity:
A Genius knows their limits.
- Albert Einstein

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The system tray is the area in the lower right corner containing the clock etc. If your co-worker can’t get at the Start button, (s)he probably hid the Windows task bar. Have him/her hover the mouse above the bottom edge of the screen. If the mouse pointer changes to a North-South arrow, it should be possible to drag the task bar (including Start button) into view again. It is also possible that the task bar has been set to hide automatically. In that case, hovering the mouse over the bottom edge of the screen should make the task bar pop up again; it is possible to right-click it then to change its properties.

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Co-worker also mentioned that cannot get the North-South cursor to appear – mouse pointer will not go to the absolute bottom of screen – stops at a black area that has appeared around the desktop display.

The difference between Genius and Stupidity:
A Genius knows their limits.
- Albert Einstein

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As an interim measure, Ctrl+Esc or the Windows key (if available on the laptop) will open the Start menu. Does the problem persist after restarting the laptop?

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Thanks for the quick responses, I will have him check – won’t be able to find out the answer until next week.

The difference between Genius and Stupidity:
A Genius knows their limits.
- Albert Einstein

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Task bar (and Start button) disappears when Explorer process stops. Hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete, then Task List button, then Application tab (if you don’t see any tabs, double-click grey frame), then New Task button, type:
explorer.exe
in the Open box and click OK.

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