One of my machines (Win 7 X64 Ultimate) is sporadically - ~once per day - suffering from an issue that I've seen mentioned upon Googling, but no solution has been found. It won't hurt to make the enquiry here. ALT-TAB pops up what I'll call the Task Window - all the currently active windows - and one can cycle through them to select a window for focus. When the failure occurs, the Task Window just sits in the middle of the primary monitor and never goes away. One can manually click on any window and keep working, but with the Task Window blocking much of one monitor it is obviously unacceptable. Task Manager doesn't show any process hogging the CPU. The only way I've found to get out of the situation is to log off. if I can quickly cancel the logoff once windows start to disappear, then the problem has been eliminated because the Task Window seems to disappear first. Usually I don't have enough running to give me time to do so, meaning I log off and have to simply log on again. This happens to be my fastest machine, with the 2500 CPU, Sata III SSD, etc, etc. I'm not sure if that's relevant to the issue, but it is certainly an annoying problem. Anybody have some ideas on this one? Art

1. Task manager is not as precise tool as Process Explorer. I would recommend PE. 2. If you PC is the fastest it need not be the most reliable one: a. Try to lower the memory frequency and not at the same time b. Look if there is the latest firmware in SSD and the SSD work in optimal conditions. c. It does not hurt to check memories. d. Is there any trace in event logs? Regards Milos

1. Task manager is not as precise tool as Process Explorer. I would recommend PE. 2. If you PC is the fastest it need not be the most reliable one: a. Try to lower the memory frequency and not at the same time b. Look if there is the latest firmware in SSD and the SSD work in optimal conditions. c. It does not hurt to check memories. d. Is there any trace in event logs? Regards Milos

Hi, Here are some steps you can try. 1. Click Show Desktop or press Windows Key+D to see if the task panel will disappear. 2. Try running Aero troubleshooterand check if it helps. 3. Try creating a new user accountand check if it helps. If issue persists, you can use Process Explorerand try to determine the cause. Hope this helps. Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, Here are some steps you can try. 1. Click Show Desktop or press Windows Key+D to see if the task panel will disappear. 2. Try running Aero troubleshooterand check if it helps. 3. Try creating a new user accountand check if it helps. If issue persists, you can use Process Explorerand try to determine the cause. Hope this helps. Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.