How To Guide

Jan 17, 2009

My Digital Life Editorial Team

84 Comments

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Task Manager Tabs and Menu Bar Missing or Disappear

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When opening or running Task Manager, the Task Manager top-level menu bar and tabs may be missing and disappeared from its window. Typically, Task Manager has the menu bar which has File, Options, View and Help pull-down options, and various tabs to display and show details on Applications, Processes, Services, Performance, Networking and Users. The problem is now all these menus and tabs are gone missing.

Actually, the clean Task Manager with ‘missing tabs and menus’ user interface is not an error nor a bug. In fact, it’s a feature of Windows Task Manager to run in tiny foot-print compact mode. In compact mode, not only the menu bar and tabs are hidden, the top and bottom window border frames which contains Minimize, Maximize and Quit/Exit buttons and status bar also go into hidden and not visible.

In fact, anybody can cause Task Manager to go into small footprint mode by simply double clicking on the empty space around the border and empty space in the border around the tabs of Task Manager. The area to double click to switch to tiny footprint mode is illustrated in the figure below in red color.

To revert and restore Task Manager to default full mode and get the menu options, tabs, status bar and other buttons back, just double click on the empty area around the border of Task Manager window again. See illustration below with area in blue for the location to double click.re the red-mark is present).

Related posts:

1. Download Free Task Manager Extension 2.0 to Enhance Built-In Windows Task Manager
2. Volume, Battery (Power) or Network Icon Disappear or Missing from Vista Taskbar Notification Area (System Tray)
3. Download Extended Task Manager to Replace Windows Task Manager with More Powerful Features
4. Display Path and File Name of Active Running Processes (Image) in Windows Vista Task Manager
5. How to Enable or Disable Windows Task Manager

84 Comments

• 
  billy February 19, 2012 at 5:04 pm

  Thanks for that – i was using the lion transformation pack and now that i know this is the issue and how to get the full thing up – i might re-install it – i liked it lol!

  Thanks

  Reply
• 
  cliff swaney January 28, 2012 at 8:24 am

  thanks!

  Reply
• 
  Abhilash Chandran December 10, 2011 at 2:34 pm

  Thanks a lot ……..

  Reply
• 
  Kerry December 2, 2011 at 1:44 pm

  Thank you! I was wondering WTF was going on and thought this was very strange.

  Reply
• 
  Chethan November 22, 2011 at 10:10 pm

  the free space is in BLUE color not RED……

  Reply
• 
  Nitin Verma November 7, 2011 at 3:36 am

  Thanks a lot. Vey helpful!!!

  Reply
• 
  chantagm September 19, 2011 at 4:35 pm

  I have learned something new today. thank you for teaching me and others.

  Reply
• 
  pj September 3, 2011 at 5:35 pm

  thanks you are such a big help !!:)

  Reply
• 
  suraz roy July 14, 2011 at 12:18 am

  thanks verymuch, i was just clicking everywhere but forgot to double click,,,,,,,,grat thanks again

  Reply
• 
  marilyn May 18, 2011 at 8:15 am

  there IS NO border around mine

  Reply
• 
  Me Imjust Me May 5, 2011 at 4:46 pm

  Thank you so much, boy i tell you, you can find ANYTHING on the web!!! Thank you once again!

  Reply
• 
  C April 26, 2011 at 11:42 am

  THANKS!!! I thought I was going to have to reinstall Windows Server 2003 R2 and all of the software installed on the server.

  Reply
• 
  pablo April 25, 2011 at 3:14 pm

  Ahem! Your Digg-Buzz-Like-Tweet bar is covering up your printed words here on this page. You really need to make that crap removable. Thanks.

  Reply
• 
  Wordpress SEO March 31, 2011 at 8:17 am

  Thanks friend, worked for me…
  Was frustated from weeks after this, didnt even know how I got that issue,. Now I know.
  hehe..

  Reply
• 
  jake March 24, 2011 at 3:16 am

  thanks!

  Reply
• 
  Phill March 23, 2011 at 11:57 am

  Thanks, I was thinking it was terminal for a while all sorted now.

  Reply
• 
  Aman March 23, 2011 at 12:45 am

  Thanks a lot, I was about to reinstall Windows.

  It was really giving me a hard time.

  Thanks again.

  Reply
• 
  AMatthews March 11, 2011 at 6:08 pm

  Oh happy days, such an easy fix….so awesome

  Reply
• 
  Sean March 2, 2011 at 12:06 pm

  Cheers for that.

  Reply
• 
  jiten February 21, 2011 at 7:16 am

  thankyou! very much. I am very grateful to you. I thought that it might be a virus who disabled these option.But now my problem is solved.Thankyou very much again.

  Reply
• 
  Kalirajan February 18, 2011 at 11:34 pm

  Thanks a lot. –

  Reply
• 
  Jim February 11, 2011 at 8:03 am

  Thanks.. I couldn't figure this out. Great help!

  Reply
• 
  Nitin February 11, 2011 at 3:25 am

  Hey …

  Thanks a lot, It was troubling me a lot!!!

  Reply
• 
  Clive M February 10, 2011 at 8:43 am

  Nice one!

  Reply
• 
  Juan February 9, 2011 at 9:02 am

  Wow! I spent so long time trying to figure out this. Thanks.

  Reply
• 
  baloch February 6, 2011 at 7:50 am

  thanks

  it worked

  Reply
• 
  ThoCae January 18, 2011 at 9:04 am

  Thanks!

  Reply
• 
  Rebecca January 17, 2011 at 6:27 pm

  Thank you. You wouldn't believe how much time I spent trying to find the fix for this!!

  Reply
• 
  Chimmy January 15, 2011 at 12:48 pm

  thnx…really started to annoy me i was almost about to re-install windows 7. u saved me big time.XD

  Reply
• 
  Morgan January 6, 2011 at 12:41 pm

  Zomg, thank you so much!! I feel like an idiot for not knowing how to get out of it though. Thank you thank you thank you. I owe you big time

  Reply
• 
  duke December 25, 2010 at 8:48 pm

  thanks it work!!

  Reply
• 
  Adam October 25, 2010 at 4:56 pm

  Thanks… It was starting to really annoy me.

  Reply
  • 
    Faith October 20, 2011 at 3:02 am

    i absolutely agree with you

    Reply
• 
  Kaizer Alvarez October 19, 2010 at 9:39 am

  tnx…

  Reply

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