Auto hide Taskbar not working

I dont normally let it start on boot up either.
In fact i had only installed it on this PC to do a back up. I guess i forgot to re configure it.

I think this may answer some of your issue, if not all of it.

Check the icons in your notification area. If there is a notification, say, in the Action Center, then the taskbar will not hide until the notification is responded to. (Check the colorless icons first- they are the ones related to the system.)

Also, if you have a pending update notification, or an "update completed" notification, this will also keep the taskbar unhidden.

I hope this helps!

I've used auto-hide taskbar option for years and have had to deal with it breaking on all the windows versions. Windows 7 is no different much to my dismay. It seems the same as with Vista - if you click on the systray notification to quick it will break auto-hide. In my case I just plugged in my USB drive and I couldn't get auto-hide back until I disconnected it.
Another method I found in Vista when all else failed is to log off and log on.
I think in XP I ended up just disabling all notifications because auto hide was so buggy, I hope I don't have to do that with win7.
Does anyone know if there is a service that can be cleared for notifications?

in my case, its usually firefox and explorer. i just open that window(s). or just kill the main explorer.exe and restart it, that's all!

This was handy because it lead me to understand that the task bar would not auto hide until I clicked on the calendar reminders in Outlook.

I also unticked: Outlook > Options > Preferences > Email Options > Advanced Email Options > Show an envelope icon in notification area.

Here is a remedy I read elsewhere, seemingly bizarre but it works in win 7 pro x64, and the problem has chased me since I ran XP, maybe even Win 98. Ready?

Find teh folder \windows\prefetch. Move all its contents, including the contained folder to some backup cubbyhole for safety. That's it!?

ok - i know i'm resurrecting an old thread, but i spent 2 hours on this. most of the remedies that are on this thread or elsewhere only provide intermittent help - sometimes just a few seconds. it seems that on 7 the auto-hide actually DOES work, where in xp it only did intermittently. but at the heart of the problem is that it's trying to help you by being counter-intuitively dynamic.

alas: you CAN get it to auto-hide & stay that way if you make sure that no icons are visible that are trying to alert you about something. the main culprits are the other parts of the OS - 7 security center & updater. disable those, and you're well on your way.

the reason why killing/restarting explorer and or prefetch appear to help is that those two alerters are taking a breather before attempting to bug you again.

(it may be that drag/dropping them to the "hidden" portion behind the arrow may also save your beef.)

Norton antivirus came with my Windows 7
After I uninstalled it, my taskbar autohide feature started working again.
Hope this helps a few people.
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