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When I do remote desktop fullscreen connection on Windows 10 local host to Windows 7 remote host, the local task bar will not get covered by the RDP window as it used to be. It remains visible on top and the only help is to set the local taskbar to auto-hide. It overlays and hides the remote taskbar.

It had started to happen after some update, not sure which one, perhaps the Creators update.

I use shortcut on desktop, tried various settings but without any success.

How can I make the local taskbar hidden behind the RDP fullscreen window? (and not visible on top of the remote desktop fullscreen window rendering the remote taskbar unavailable?)

Local taskbar on top of the remote one

Jason Aller
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Vojtěch Dohnal
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    Does [this answer](https://superuser.com/a/104465/611876) help? It seems pretty similiar to your issue. – Tim G. Aug 21 '17 at 14:52
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    @TimmyJim not at all. I have RDP fullscreen, so I do not have the linked issue at all. Only taskbar is on top and not behind RDP window, that is the problem. – Vojtěch Dohnal Aug 21 '17 at 15:17
  • With remote working I fight this every single day. At times I move my local taskbar around to avoid the conflict but it's still annoying. – drescherjm Dec 09 '21 at 21:50

6 Answers6

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Try restarting explorer.exe process as mentioned in fixing remote desktop taskbar

Jikku Joseph John
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I have figured it out today using a hint from this discussion.

"Thanks Tony, that means a program has raised the MustBeSeen system flag. Typically this is a program that needs your attention, like antivirus or backup program that has some message it's waiting to tell you. It is almost always a program icon near the clock in the notification area. Once you clear the MustBeSeen flag by addressing the program, the taskbar will hide again.

As a best practice suggestion, hit Ctrl+Shift+Escape and disable anything on the Startup tab you don't need autorunning. That limits how many things load there, and lessens how many programs can raise the MustBeSeen flag."

There must have been something in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update that's changed the way how the taskbar overlays work and so seems to be causing it.

So I have closed all my apps running in the background with notification icon and the problem went away.

Here is a link to the quoted answer.

Vojtěch Dohnal
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    So this bug is not going to be fixed? I use RDP often and this often happens, making fullscreen work on the remote computer very annoying. – comodoro Dec 27 '17 at 16:15
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    This is a horrible mis-feature of windows. I am going to switch to using Linux as my host operating system and then remote into windows and VMs, because Microsoft can't make a useable home base for me in windows. I can't stop stupid programs from raising this flag. – Warren P Jan 10 '18 at 17:47
  • I think it is "by design feature" that got into windows as they try to make one Windows for PCs, tablets and phones. Unfortunately it makes the desktop OS less usable. – Vojtěch Dohnal Jan 11 '18 at 07:49
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    It was Outlook that was causing this problem for me! Got a feeling they have a lot of temps working at MS nowadays :-D – 3-14159265358979323846264 Sep 19 '18 at 13:22
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    In my case, it was that the battery was running low + some apps stopped working, and consequently the Windows Security Center had "Actions Recommended." – Kim Mar 28 '19 at 23:00
  • Anyone knows some tool which would be able to identify which app actually set this flag? – Joerg S Feb 22 '20 at 11:12
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    Seems like this doesn't work here. I closed all applications which were either present in the notification area or in the task bar itself. Plus I read and removed all the messages shown in the Windows Action Center. Still doesn't want to show me the task bar of the remote system. Probably anyone got a clue? – Joerg S Feb 22 '20 at 11:22
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    This is not a bug! This is a feature, and an awesome one at that! Now I can have local Skype running on one monitor with my local taskbar on that monitor, and the RDP taskbar on the other monitor!!! – Aubrey Robertson Mar 19 '20 at 18:34
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I have Snagit on my home computer. If I open it (or it's a startup program), the taskbar of my home computer overlaps the taskbar of my remote computer. If I close Snagit on my home computer side, viola! Problem solved. Find the program running on the non-remote computer that is forcing its way into the foreground, then, "FINISH HIM!"

Nick Dupont
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I had the same issue, and decided to try the remove the "I need to be seen" task. But I just right clicked on the icons and then clicked on "remove from taskbar" I kept the ones that I know have been there before the problem and removed the others. After I did that I could see my remote desktop taskbar!

Shay
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I was not able to find the offending task (perhaps is my remote utility that I cannot disable not to lose the connection). As a workaround I was able to move the overlapping bar to the right side of the screen allowing me to see the remote bottom bar.

Zac
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One possible solution on my Win10 machine where this happens regularly:

  • Right click on task bar
  • Choose Taskbar settings
  • Enable and disable the setting to show/not show task bar on multiple screens

Now it should work as expected.

petermeissner
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