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Until today when an application was minimized its icon was still on the Taskbar. To return focus to the program I would simply click the icon on the Taskbar.

Today, minimized applications now appear as minimized windows taking up desktop space. The Taskbar functionality has not changed. (See below.)

screenshot of sample item

Why are minimized apps now showing as a small window on the desktop? More importantly, how does one restore things where just the Taskbar icon represents the application?

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  • What have you tried already to rectify it (reboots, System Restore, etc.)? Have you done any customization to the shell using 3rd party utilities?
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Commented Aug 26, 2013 at 17:56
  • Have you tried right clicking on the window frame and manually selecting minimize just to see if that works?
    – Grant
    Commented Aug 26, 2013 at 18:09
  • I've not changed anything in attempt to fix, and a reboot will need to wait for some completed work first. Right-clicking on the frame does not give me a pop-up menu. Left-click on the icon gives the standard pop-up and minimizes the same.
    – Richard Ogg
    Commented Aug 26, 2013 at 18:14
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    I have seen this behavior when Explorer.exe gets out of whack, I bet a restart will fix it too. If it persists after a reboot please update the question with that info.
    – Scott Chamberlain
    Commented Aug 26, 2013 at 18:30
  • Thanks, Scott. In reality, one should always reboot before posting problems on sites such as this. It appears a reboot fixed it. (It still seems very weird - a flashback to yesteryear....)
    – Richard Ogg
    Commented Aug 27, 2013 at 21:20

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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I have had the same problem just now. I believe it is a disorder caused by explorer.exe. What I did to fix it without restarting the machine, is to kill (or end) the process "explorer.exe" in Task Manager, then re-run it again [File>New task (run..)]. Hope that helps!

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You don't need to reboot, just restart the explorer.exe process

taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe - your desktop will disappear

explorer.exe - your old desktop reappears!

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