I had a partial crash with windows XP and the taskbar is gone along with the ability to get the right click context menu. How do I get the taskbar back without rebooting the computer?

CTRL+Alt+Delete then start task manager. Go to applications, New Task, then type in explorer.

Should restart session, worked for me in the past.

CTRL+Alt+Delete then start task manager. Go to applications, New Task, then type in explorer.

Should restart session, worked for me in the past.


Isn't this the same file as C:\Windows\explorer.exe. I went to this one and it just opened the explorer file manager. I finally just rebooted but I was trying to finish up a download prior to rebooting. I do want to know how to do it should it ever happen again. Thanks for your answer.

Actually, this is what finally worked. I opened up the task manager and ended the explorer task. Then I went to the apps new task and typed in explorer in the run field. It did work after that. What had happened was that a part of explorer had been terminated but not the entire app. Once explorer had been terminated and it had been re-started, it did work. Thanks for your help.

Mike H.