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why do i have missing toolbars on a laptop?
hi all,
the kids have been at the mrs laptop,
i’ve spent an hour or two blindly fumbling around the setings to no avail, so…
the bottom toolbar, the one with the start menu, windows, and quicklaunch, has disappeared. yesterday when i had five mins, i did manage to ‘drag’ the bar up onto the screen.
all done i thought… wrong! the bar was missing again, this time i can’t drag it up, i know it’s thee cos i can shove the mouse to the bottom of the screen, right click, and bring up its property menus, but, whatever i’ve tried, doesn’t bring it back.
i’ve also noticed that all the network connections have vanished, i know i can probably make more (forget if i’ve tried now.. late night in workshop!), but why would they all just disappear?
i’ve not even given this one a telling off, before you ask!! keep telling her not to let the kids get on it, one of em especially, is always on those pesky networking sites and god knows what else! we’ve got the two oldest a cheap laptop each for their coursework, i dread to think how long one in particular is gonna last!
anyways, all idea’s and the blindingly obvious quick fixed will be appreciated!
tia,
Hugh
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17 Replies
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even thou its out of sight if you press the windows key it should come up.
else in its properties have it on top.
chris
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just thought if the screen res is wrong it will be off screen but should scroll down to it
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Turn the screen upside down and give it a shake, the toolbar will then fall back out 😉
After pressing the start button try moving the bar to the side or top of the screen then putting it back to the bottom, this cured it for me some time ago
Peter
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As Chris said – check your screen resolution settings. This happened to me a few years ago when my daughters friend mucked about with our PC at home – it turned out she had changed the screen resolution and the tool bar appeared off screen. Problem was it was difficult to change the setting back because the button you click on to change the setting back was also off screen and I was unable to scroll down to it 😕 I was eventually successful in changing the resolution back but can’t remember how I did it.
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try holding the ctrl and alt keys down then the arrow keys and see what happens
🙂 Ian -
hmmm, thanks, we seem to have got the start bar back up, i’ve done this before but it was gone again the next time we fired the laptop up,
the problem now is that minimised windows are not returning to the start bar, but sitting on the desktop,
also, the anti virus seems to be down a bit, and her network connections are all gone.
another thing… live update!!… it says in the add/remove programs folder, that the anti virus program f-secure, has not been used since jan 07, when it was installed, but ‘the sims game’ was last used 24th 11th, we decided to remove the program, but got the following message…
"the install shield engine (Ikernal.exe) could not be launched, the interface is unknown"
houston… we have a problem!
just gonna see if it’s starting up in safe mode or something. alot seems to be out of kilter on mrs lappy though.
it gets better,
while mine has all it’s network connections in place, it’s not auto connecting to the wireless, i have to search for networks to get it to hook up, both laptops are having go slows, and neither will let us delete anymore programs, i just tried to delete ‘paint shop pro7’ evaluation program, which is about at the end of its 60 days, i get an error message telling me it’s on another network and cannot be deleted from this location,
both laptops have it, and both have f-secure which is due for renewal.
is it me, or do computers always mess about when the renewal of an anti virus is due? did every year about the time of my old norton renweal, until i renewed it!
2x formats coming up thinks I…
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formatting seems to be the way forward, my laptop is only a year and half old, but i only really use it for internet, to keep my work pc off the internet and prevent problems. I re formatted it a month ago and its like a new laptop again, so much faster again, makes you realise how much they slow down after time with everything clogging them up. Im going to reformat every 6 months or so now. just to keep it running smoothly.
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HI Matt,
It’s been formatted 3x in the past 6 months! once for a new hard drive, and twice since when going back for continuing problems!
my worry, is that last time i formatted this one, it wouldn’t accept windows again, hence new hd.
i hate computers!
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when you next get your taskbar up, right click on it somewhere and then a task bar and start menu properties windows should come up…from there you can do your required settings
x
hope this helps -
Hugh, hang tight i think i’ve got this one sorted for you
Back in a sec
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Have a look at this link
I had the same thing ages ago and this sorted it out
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Have you tried a system restore to a date before this happened?
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No link John!!!
not done a system restore for some reason it doesn’t seem to want to, and, as it’s been playing up since the last major repair/format, i saw little point in persevering!!
we seem to have sorted some major issues though…. my conspiracy theory would appear to be correct.. all three of our computers (2 laptps and a desktop) have their own f-secure anti virus, all have come up recently with the 28 days to go before subscription runs out, all have begun to have weirder and weirderer problems.
lucy uninstalled it while i was struggling with go slows in the workshop, and everything came back, all her network and wireless conenctions, missing files, everything.
so i followed suit, and rather than taking 2mins to shut down, and 3mins to boot to a position where i could even start to open corel, it was 20 seconds to shut down, and within 60 seconds i had corel open and running!!!
ok, so i currently have no anti virus, and tha’s priority now, but f-secure can stick their renewal subscription right up their arris. gonna send em a right sheety letter of comlaint and demand some kinds of recompence for the time lost to messing about.
i have yet to see if it will lock up again, i suspect perhaps not, but,
one thing has been proven, despite all my tempers, slamming the lid down, hammering it with clenched fist, and swearing at it, it has proven itself to be bulletproof!!!!!
go go fujitsu seimens!
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I’ve long thought that the authors of the viruses are the same people that develop the antivirus software.
This conspiracy theory could be even bigger than Princess Diane, President Kennedy, The Moon Missions, Marilyn Monroe etc.
It’s time the world found out the truth about computer viruses 😕
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Hugh, I use BitDefender anti virus on all my PCs very good and fair price.
Nick.
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As for anti-virus protection – bitdefender and avg 7.5 all the way. Norton and Mcafee hog the system too much.
As for spyware – use avg spyware and ad-aware se (not the new 2007 version as its crap)
As of yet no problems on laptop in 3 years and 18 months on main pc (last time to hard drive failure)
Hope helps
Steve
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