I've installed Taskbar eliminator, while it works most of the time, alerts being the taskbar back.
I've also installed object dock which can disable the taskbar, object dock appears during window changes.
Has anyone had any luck permanently removing, hiding the taskbar in Windows 7?
Update
I found an application that seems to be working here:
Second update
I took the leap and installed a shell replacement (bblean). So far so good.