Services filling up taskbar as applications

Posted by Chris on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Chris
Published on 2010-02-07T09:21:34Z Indexed on 2010/03/23 18:03 UTC
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windows-xp

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taskbar

Windows XP, with Windows Classic theme

I've had a sporradic problem, where the task bar seems to fill up with lots of tasks, which seem to be names of services. When I open Task Manager, the Applications tab is filled with these names. I can still continue to use my PC to an extent, but it's not possible to remove all these icons from the taskbar, and other Windows UI features (e.g. Start bar) tend to be 'hollow' so I only see the outline; meaning I have to restart. See screenshot:

alt text

The trigger seems to be clicking on the "Show Desktop" quick link when I have several applications open (e.g. Outlook, Excel). Has anyone else come across this? It's happened to me on my home machine before, but seems to happen more frequently (2-3 times a week) at work...

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