Quick Fix for  Missing Taskbar Icons

By | August 10, 2017
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Quick Fix for  Missing Taskbar Icons

Some people have experienced a little glitch in Windows 10 where taskbar icons suddenly disappear.  Now, this does not happen to everyone, or even most users, but if it happens to you it can be annoying. But hold on, it’s easy to fix.

If you’re one of those who experiences the phenomena I call The Case of the Missing Taskbar icons, here’s a quick and easy fix:

Press CTRL + SHIFT + ESC to open task manager
Find Windows Explorer (located in Processes)
Right-click and choose “Restart”

Your icons will magically re-appear. This works every time – unless you have a more serious problem.

This tip was written for Windows 10, but it will work in 8.x too.

7 thoughts on “Quick Fix for  Missing Taskbar Icons

  1. Harold Feldman

    this did not work for me I did press ctrl shift esc but got nothing

    Reply
  2. Ron Oliveira

    I used to use this quick fix occasionally. Each time I had to lookup the correct keys to use. Over the past week or so I have had to use it every morning because the battery level icon would not be present. Now I have the three keys memorized! I like Windows 10, but the little quirks get annoying.

    Reply
  3. Arnie Brown

    I can find the “ctrl” button and the “esc” button, but where the heck is the “shift” button. I know I’m sometimes slow, and maybe this is one of those times.

    Reply
  4. Susan

    I pressed both Ctrl+Shift+Ecs & Ctrl +Alt+Esc to open the Task Manager and Windows Explorer showed up in neither…why was that?

    Reply
    1. infoave Post author

      Windows Explorer has to be running on your PC in tasks as it’s the Windows GUI. If you end all instances of Windows Explorer in “tasks” you will have no desktop icons, you will have no menus, taskbar, etc. In Windows 10, tasks are grouped into types: Apps, Background Processes, and Windows Processes. Windows Processes in the last group. You can change the view so everything is listed in alphabetical order by clicking on the word “Name” near the top of Task Manager. Then, Windows Explorer will be shown in the list alphabetically.

      Reply
  5. Arnie Brown

    Thanks Carol Gallo. Much appreciated from this sometimes delusional old buzzard.
    Arnie

    Reply

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