Some Taskbar Icons not working the same as others

DougInATX · 14 Mar 2016

I updated from Win8.1 to Win10 over the weekend. I use a number of documents pinned to the icons on my Taskbar. (I right click the icons and pin frequently used docs from the recently used file list on each icons context menu) When I right click the Taskbar icons, most have a context menu (Open and Unpin from Taskbar and a list of recently used files) but with Notepad or Excel2016 I don't see the context menu or the unpin option with either of these. The icon seems dead to a right click.

To add to the mystery, I was able to remove the Excel icon from the large start menu Icons but can't seem to get it back now. The icon in the start menu/all apps does not work either and my Taskbar icon for Excel has stopped launching the program since I removed the icon from the start menu. Other MS Office icons and other program icons are working normally except Notepad has similar issues.

I don't want to make things worse by doing a reinstall or other drastic things if I can avoid them. Any ideas or thoughts on how to fix this.

hooked · 28 Apr 2016

You're not alone. My context menu is very, very slow to open. If it opens at all. And when it does open, I have to wait several seconds before my cursor is able to move to select an item. The far right icon on the task bar that is the little icon with lines inside the box - where you get notifications - if I left click nothing happens. If I right click, I get the pop up that says "Open Action Center" and I click on it and it does nothing.
My problem isn't just right click on taskbar. It's right click anywhere. One thing, it's making me learn more shortcuts because I am so pissed at myself when I forget and right click.
If you search this forum or just Google Windows 10 Start Menu Button you'll see hundreds of hits on some potential fixes. There are 3 fixes that are mentioned several times. But the fixes either don't work, or they are temporary.
I ran Windows 10 Pro for 7 or 8 months before I got the problem. I was luckier than lots of people who - like you - started having problems right away.
I've decided that tomorrow I'm going back down to Windows 7 Pro. Then I'll just check in to this forum every so often and see if Windows has actually come up with a solution for this.

Good luck to you. Really sucks, but you have lots of company.