Fix a Taskbar That Freezes or Disappears

The taskbar lives in explorer.exe. Restarting it closes File Explorer windows but leaves running apps alone.

Get-Process explorer | Select-Object Id,StartTime,@{n='MB';e={[math]::Round($_.WorkingSet64/1MB)}}
Stop-Process -Name explorer -Force
Start-Sleep -Seconds 3
Get-Process explorer | Select-Object Id,StartTime

**StartMenuExperienceHost** and **ShellExperienceHost** own the Start menu and the flyouts. Ending them is safe; Windows restarts them on demand.

Get-Process StartMenuExperienceHost,ShellExperienceHost,SearchHost -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object Name,Id,StartTime
Get-Process StartMenuExperienceHost,ShellExperienceHost -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Stop-Process -Force
Start-Sleep -Seconds 5
Get-Process StartMenuExperienceHost,ShellExperienceHost -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object Name,Id

A component that crashes repeatedly leaves an application error with the faulting module. That module is the actual cause, not the taskbar.

Get-WinEvent -LogName Application -MaxEvents 100 | Where-Object { $_.ProviderName -match 'Application Error|.NET Runtime' -and $_.Message -match 'explorer|ShellExperience' } | Select-Object TimeCreated,Id,Message -First 3
Get-WinEvent -LogName 'Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Core/Operational' -MaxEvents 10 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object TimeCreated,Id,Message -First 3

A broken context-menu handler can freeze the bar when it loads. Autoruns lists them, and disabling the non-Microsoft entries is the test.

Get-ChildItem 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions\Blocked' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object -First 5 Name
autoruns64.exe -accepteula -e
Get-ChildItem 'HKCR:\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object PSChildName

An empty or missing taskbar after a profile repair is often a damaged layout cache. Clearing the cached layout makes Windows rebuild it.

Get-ChildItem "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object Name,Length
Remove-Item "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\*" -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Stop-Process -Name StartMenuExperienceHost -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Right-click the taskbar, open the notification centre and switch a virtual desktop. All three use different components, so all three have to work.

Get-Process explorer,StartMenuExperienceHost,ShellExperienceHost -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object Name,Id,Responding
Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem | Select-Object LastBootUpTime,FreePhysicalMemory
Get-WinEvent -FilterHashtable @{LogName='Application';Id=1000} -MaxEvents 3 | Select-Object TimeCreated,Message