Win7's autohide taskbar function defeated by maximize Firefox?

[flycaster]

On occasion, when FF7 has been maximize, the Windows 7 taskbar (locked and set to autohide) can not be brought up with a hovering cursor. To get it back while in max screen, I have to fiddle around with minimizing and maximizing while bringing up the taskbar when it is visible...a real PITA, eh? Although I have researched this problem and have found out it goes back at least 5 years, I have yet to see a solution??? I hope that my research missed some thing (and it may very well have) and there is a solution to this vexing, long-term problem.

 

[Roderunner]

Reset taskbar to normal, open FF maximised then set auto hide.

 

[flycaster]

Thanks, Riderunner. Made the changes and tried 3 times in succession, seems to be working fine, so far. BTW, is this a known fix?

 

[Roderunner]

It is now.!

 

[flycaster]

Hope it is a lasting fix. As this problem is rather random in occurrance, we'll have to keep track of these results a lttle onger to confirn just how good a fix it is. This proglem has been bore with FF for several years and as far as I know, this may be the first fi...Give it a little time and we'll see

 

[flycaster]

Sorry, Roderumnner, not the fix. Taskbar just hide itself and won't respond to cursor movement. Happened when I was doing some thing with KeeFox. As I have seen this happen before when KeeFox was used (in some manner...wasn't just saving a pw), I'm pretty sure there is some kind of conflict.

 

[Roderunner]

Sorry to hear its still intermittently giving trouble. Can't think of anything else.

 

[debugged]

Apparently, there is a real bug in the interaction of Windows autohide and fullscreen with several browsers. It seems the best way to get the taskbar to unhide again is to hit the Windows key. On this page, this microsoft admission sums it up:

"Proposed As Answer byAtul Dua [MSFT]Wednesday, March 02, 2011 10:46 PM:

Thanks for all your inputs. Here is what does seem to be a bug and is being looked into:

1. Auto hide the taskbar.

2. Launch IE or FF and put it in full screen mode (press F11).

3. The taskbar cannot be unhidden by taking the mouse. This is by design. Because imagine someone had task bar on the top, and if moving the mouse on the top of IE, the taskbar was going to unhide, it will obscure the menu buttons on the top of IE.

4. Now, change the mode of IE back from full screen (by pressing F11 again).

5. The taskbar should now be unhidden by mouse, but it isn't. And that is an issue.

But what doesn't seem to be an issue is that the only work around after step 5 is to reboot the system or restart explorer or restart firefox/ IE. There are many work arounds for this scenario:

1. Just press the Windows button on your PC. It will bring back the taskbar. Or press Win + D and it will minimize all windows, and get access back to the taskbar.

2. If your keyboard doesn't have the Winkey, then just minimize the IE / FF window. It will again bring back the taskbar.

3. Alt-Tab and select any other window."

 

[flycaster]

Thanks, Debugged, for clearing up this issue. I've been on several boards trying to get an answer to this problem, all to no avail until your post. Hope MS eventually comes up with a fix. BTW, Maxthon is not effected by this bug.