Disappearing Taskbar & System Tray along with Black Rectangle on the Desktop?

On about three occasions, I have left my PC (Windows 7, 64 bit), only to return after half an hour to discover, that the taskbar & system tray at the bottom of the desktop has disappeared, although the start button located at the bottom left remains and is fully functional ie I am able to launch programs, internet browsers etc from it.

Also a longish black rectangle appears in the centre of the desktop as shown: enter image description here

Upon rebooting the PC everything is restored to normal.

What could the possible causes for this be?

Simon

Posted 2013-02-13T22:19:02.690

Reputation: 4 193

Answers

My guess is that explorer.exe crashed. If you kill that task and restart it you should be fine, without having to restart your computer.

imtheman

Posted 2013-02-13T22:19:02.690

Reputation: 3 503

I stopped explorer.exe, and has made my desktop go completely blank...luckily i was able to launch web browser via rocket dock to get back to this page. So that hasn't worked. – Simon – 2013-02-13T22:31:28.457

What happens when you start explorer again? – imtheman – 2013-02-13T22:34:02.907

How do I restart explorer ? – Simon – 2013-02-13T22:34:50.557

@Simon I think he means open task manager, then kill explorer, keep task manager open, then you can start explorer again from task manager file..new..explorer.exe – barlop – 2013-02-13T22:35:06.670

@barlop Yes, that is exactly what I mean. – imtheman – 2013-02-13T22:36:30.177

@barlop Yes I opened task manager and killed the process explorer and my desktop has gone completely blank ? – Simon – 2013-02-13T22:36:34.953

@barlop How do I restart explorer ? – Simon – 2013-02-13T22:37:32.533

Now go to File>New Task then type explorer and hit enter. – imtheman – 2013-02-13T22:37:32.923

@PeterMaxwell Will try that now – Simon – 2013-02-13T22:38:06.323

@PeterMaxwell Yes that has worked, thankyou very much...Why has explorer started crashing – Simon – 2013-02-13T22:39:42.623

Not sure. It could be a virus, but without seeing your system it's hard to tell. I would run a scan though. – imtheman – 2013-02-13T22:43:49.440

@PeterMaxwell Thankyou anyway much appreciated :) – Simon – 2013-02-13T22:44:36.157

Not sure about the other problems, but for that black box im betting you have an ASUS motherboard. Do you? If so one of those ASUS utilities that starts up with windows is causing that annoying box - If i can remember it was AI Charger or something - it was the app with the little menu giving you options to access the different features of the MB like Overclocking, Bluetooth, etc. Shut down that Utility and that box should go with it.

Eric

Posted 2013-02-13T22:19:02.690

Reputation: 1

My motherboard is Packard Bell, thx for your input though. – Simon – 2013-03-20T09:23:18.067