Windows 11 Taskbar Not Working

Windows 11 has been launched for months and many users have upgraded to Windows 11. But some users have reported they can’t find the taskbar or it’s not working suddenly. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. My taskbar is not working after lunchtime and it’s troublesome. The post is here to help.

Solution 1: Restart your PC

Restarting your PC might be the easiest working fix to try. And it works most of the time. Follow the steps to restart your PC when the taskbar is not working or disappears.

1. Press the Ctrl + Alt + Del key together.
2. In your right bottom of the screen, click the power button and choose Restart.

If this simple reboot doesn’t work, the next fix might help.

Solution 2: Restart Windows Explorer

The taskbar is part of the Windows Explorer service, so rebooting the service and starting the new task may solve the problem.

1. Press the Ctrl+Shift+Esc key on your keyboard together to open the Task Manager.
2. In the Processes tab, find Windows Explorer.
3. Right-click on it and choose Restart.
   
4. Check your taskbar to see the difference.

Solution 3: Microsoft fix

The Microsoft support team discovered an issue with a server-side deployment that went out to Insiders and canceled that deployment. You can follow the steps below to get back into a working state on your PC.

1. Press the Ctrl+Shift+Esc key on your keyboard together to open the Task Manager.
2. Click File and choose Run new task.
3. Type cmd and press the Enter key.
4. Copy and paste the following into the command panel. Then hit the Enter key on your keyboard.
   reg delete HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\IrisService /f && shutdown -r -t 0
5. Your PC will reboot and everything should be back to normal.

Solution 4: Repair system files

1. Open Start.
2. Search for Command Prompt, right-click the top result, and select the Run as administrator option.
3. Type the following command to repair the Windows 10 system files and press Enter:sfc /scannowSource: Windows Central
4. Confirm the command results:
   • Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations – indicates that the system does not have any corrupted or missing files.
   • Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation – indicates a problem during the scan, and an offline scan is required.
   • Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them. Details are included in the CBS.Log %WinDir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log – indicates that the tool detected problems and was able to fix them.
   • Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them. Details are included in the CBS.Log %WinDir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log – indicates you may need to repair the corrupted files manually.

Once you complete the steps, the SFC command-line tool will scan, detect, and fix Windows 10 system file problems.

When the tool detects an issue, it is recommended to run the command around three times to ensure that all the problems have been corrected properly.

If you find problems running the tool, use this guide to use the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool to repair the local Windows 10 image files to allow SFC to complete successfully.

System File Checker logs

To view the details stored in the CBS.Log file from an SFC scan, use these steps:

1. Open Start.
2. Search for Command Prompt, right-click the top result, and select the Run as administrator option.
3. Type the following command and press Enter:findstr /c:"[SR]" %windir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log > C:\sfclogs.txt"Source: Windows Central
4. Open File Explorer (Windows key + E).
5. Click on This PC from the left pane.
6. Under the “Devices and drives” section, open the Local Disk (the “C” drive).
7. Double-click the sfclogs.txt file to open it with the default text editor app.Source: Windows Central

After you complete the steps, the log file will reveal all the scanned system files and information for the unrepairable files.

This option is only available when performing a scan within Windows 10, not when performing an offline scan with Command Prompt.