How to show taskbar without showing start menu?

Question

In case where you are fullscreen, doing some work and suddenly have to jump to the taskbar to switch to another program or to use a utility which resides in system tray menu. Pressing Start or Ctrl+Esc shows the taskbar with start menu open. The opened start menu is somewhat distractive when you are doing some focus-oriented tasks such as programming.

So, are there any ways to achieve this? Any tweaks? Any registry edits?

PS. I have tried many utilities such as 7+ Taskbar Tweaker but got nothing to work!

Answer 1

• Press Windows+T to focus on the apps
• Press Windows+B to focus on the notification area

Both will show the taskbar without the start menu

Answer 2

Would doing Start+D (Windows key+D) be useful maybe? This brings you to your desktop, and minimizes everything. It takes me out of fullscreen... at least, youtube fullscreen. Not sure about other programs.