Windows 10: Desktop taskbar icons all gone? Nothing able to be minimised?? HELP!

I think I have recently done an update.

Now, my computer turns on fine. However the only taskbar icons I have from the extreme left is the windows 'start' image, then the cortana circle then the taskview rectangle.

From the extreme right I have the usual show desktop sliver, then a blank gap of around an inch where wifi / volume / clock should be then a rectangular speech bubble 'No new notifications' then the up arrow - which only shows a single grey square 'ELAN pointing device'.

That's it. There were several quick icons there prior. Edge, MFF, folders, ASUS update, Chrome etc. All gone.

Also, I can't actually access anything from the start window icon. Clicking it does nothing. When I hover / click it it turns red, but that's it.

All my usual desktop icons are there. I can use them but can't minimise anything. If I do minimise anything it vanishes. I can open it again via the task manager as they are still running but that's it.

The ONLY way to shut down my computer is to go to the ctrl + alt + del to the red screen and use the icons in the bottom right hand corner. I can sometimes right click on the start windows icon and it will pop up a black menu and one of the options is power / sleep / shutdown etc.

Any ideas??? This is driving me up the wall *Sad

Thanks!

:)

 

Will desktop composition be able to be disabled?

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community.

• Is there any specific feature are you referring to when you say, "desktop composition" in Windows 10?

Windows 10 is more familiar to Windows 7 users. It includes a Start menu. You have the All apps list, similar to the All Programs list.

So its much easier to use compared to transitioning from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1.

Basics:
Using Start and Taskbar in Windows 10

Reference: Andre Da Costa

Hope this information is helpful. Please feel free to reply in case you face any other issues with Windows in future.

 

Windows 10 Taskbar icons gone and start button not working

Hi, from today suddenly my taskbar and start menu buttons have stopped working and even the Run is not working.Am only able to use apps that have an icon on my desktop and nothing else.Please help as this pc is really important for my work.

 

Hello *Smile

This has happened to a few people. The usual way to get out of this is to repair system files that have become corrupted. The usual route is to run the system file checker and see if it sorts things out, it may not and so the next step is to run the DISM tool to restore files.

1. Click the Cortana circle and type in command, this should give you the link to the Command prompt, right click it and select Run as administrator.
2. Accept the UAC prompt and then enter sfc /scannow in the Administrator: Command Prompt window.
3. Wait until it has completed and see what is reported. This will take several minutes. You may want to do a restart to see if there is any improvement.
4. If still not fixed then proceed to the DISM which is run as before from the Administrator: Command Prompt window. Enter the following command: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
5. Again wait several minutes for it to complete and review the result. As before restart and see if it has made any difference.

Post back your results and we will help you further if needed. Here are a couple of tutorials which go through the procedure in more detail:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/7...-10-image.html

...Phil

 

Hello Phil,

Thanks for your reply. Clicking on Cortana has no effect. I can right click on it and a black menu pops up.

Any other way to get the command prompt?

 

This tutorial shows all the ways to open an elevated command prompt, hope one of them works for you!

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html

 

Did the first step and got these results below after around 30 minutes:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.10586]

(c) 2015 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>sfc/scannow

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.


C:\WINDOWS\system32>

So, even though it returned a negative for issues, after a restart it seems to be back to normal (sluggish it seems but back to normal).

See what happens,

Really appreciate your help *Smile

Jason

 

OK, you are making progress then! Leave the system running for a while, perhaps overnight and see if it improves, with a new update there are quite a few background processes and indexing to be completed and these usually run while the laptop is idle but can sometimes be running when you are trying to do other things.

If there is no real improvement run the DISM command and see if this finds anything.