It's about time that I figure this out. I can say with a pretty high confidence that I have experienced this issue in all consumer versions of Windows since XP.

I keep "Auto-hide the task bar" checked to maximize screen real estate. Every once in a while, the task bar will refuse to hide while individual windows will continue to act as if that option is checked (by falling under the task bar).

For years, I have fixed this by rebooting. Of course, I cannot predict the timing or frequency of the problem, so the process becomes burdensome.

I want to know how this can be fixed without rebooting. It has affected my on multiple machines using multiple versions of Windows, so I cannot be the only one who is bothered by it.

Can anyone help me solve this?