Why does my Windows task bar pop up and down

Several things I can think of:

There are 2 types of apps can bring up the taskbar - applications that show notifications (in Windows 7, just hide those notifications to avoid this behavior), or applications that simulate key strokes. It could be an application running in the background, or even a script using the SendKeys method.
Try to see what's running on your machine (ProcessExplorer) and eliminate the applications one at a time until you catch the culprit.
Another thing I can think of, that I've experienced before, is touch screen activity. Whenever I touched my screen, it popped up the bar. Ignore if you don't use a touch screen
Finally, it can be that you have key stuck in your keyboard. It may even be a useless key that does nothing when manually pressed (like SysRq - why do they keep including it?).
Try connecting a different keyboard to your computer and see if the behavior reoccurs.

Traveling Tech Guy

Posted 2011-05-17T06:47:01.573

Reputation: 8 743

Thanks. I'll take a look. See http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/SysRq for a list of reasons why they keep including the SysRq key.

– sickgemini – 2011-05-18T01:58:51.427

Funny stuff :). Would have put just a smiley, but you need at least 15 characters to have a valid comment. Guess they wanted to avoid the dreaded 4-letter-word-space-3-letter-word situation :) – Traveling Tech Guy – 2011-05-18T06:35:26.743

Went through and closed down a bunch of processes and seems to have stopped it. Thanks for the help. – sickgemini – 2011-05-30T22:56:41.080

You're welcome. Try to isolate the culprit and post its name. – Traveling Tech Guy – 2011-05-30T22:57:38.227

Why does my Windows task bar pop up and down

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