Fix Windows Tooltips Showing Behind Taskbar

26 Responses to “Fix Windows Tooltips Showing Behind Taskbar”

• Wickedfaital April 5, 2012 at 4:59 pm

  Thank you so much that was so annoying I changed my screen rez and adjusted a few things and bam lost my tool tips 
• Sandy M. October 24, 2010 at 11:59 pm

  Oh…didn’t realize that such tool exist to fix a tiny windows bug. :) This is actually one of the most unique utilities I’ve encountered.

  While the taskbar is one of the most common part of the windows interface that is facing various bugs and errors, I think it will be a good idea if the maker of this tool can also do a fix for those bugs like:

  missing icons in the taskbar

  open programs not showing in the taskbar

  icons randomly appearing and disappearing

  entire taskbar missing

  Although you can find the solutions here: windowsfix.org/how-to-fix-windows-taskbar-errors.html ….It will be a hassle to do it all manually everytime.
• D July 26, 2010 at 1:27 pm

  Perfect!!!!!!!!
• Ben January 8, 2010 at 1:20 pm

  I have SP3, and also have this problem :P so it does not seem to have been (necessarily) fixed in SP3.

  I googled UserPreferencesMask to try and find out what the registry fix does… Microsoft’s Technet contains an article on it here: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc957204.aspx however from this article it seems like the values changed are “reserved for future use,” leading me to believe that changing them either should have no effect, or that Technet is misinformed.

  I went ahead and made the change, then end-task’d Explorer, restarted it, confirmed the problem was fixed (it was), then attempted to create the problem again by the method given in other comments here – right-clicking a program in the start menu – and lo: it has not manifested itself. I’m a skeptic by nature, however, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I noticed the error again several hours from now :P
• Just Upgrade December 31, 2009 at 9:16 am

  It seems that Microsoft finally corrected this problem with Service Pack 3 on XP – I had this problem with SP2 but now it seems to have vanished.

  If you have SP2 you can reproduce this problem by going to Start Menu->Programs->going to any item and right-clicking to “properties”. Your tooltips would then appear behind the systray. Upgrade to SP3 and no longer happens.
• Jonkers October 4, 2009 at 4:56 pm

  Thanks for compiling these solutions here.

  Here is yet another fix, written by Jerold Schulman for an article that appeared in Windows IT Pro magazine and also in SQLServer magazine, May 12, 2006:
  sqlmag.com/Articles/Print.cfm?ArticleID=85856

  It is a batch file named FixTTbTB.bat that you run from a command line prompt with a F or U switch. The syntax is: FixTTbTB F|U
  (Where F fixes the problem, and U undoes the fix.)

  (** I have copied the contents of the batch file at the end of this message.)

  The batch file sets the value of registry key
  HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\UserPreferencesMask
  to either 90320780 (“fix”)
  or 9E3E0780 (“undo”)

  This fix appears to work, by changing the values of the first two hex words 90 32 to 9E 3E. (I cannot find documentation for the values of this registry key, so I don’t know exactly what the 9E and 3E do — maybe someone here can answer this?).

  **NOTE** — The value of 9E3E0780 for “Undo” is the default value of the key on a fresh Windows XP installation..

  However, before running this batch file, you might want to check the current value of the key in your system:
  I just noticed that the value of this key, on several of my XP computers which have been in use for awhile, differs from the Microsoft default, so the key has apparently been changed by other things that I have run on my systems. E.G., here are the values of the key in three of my computers:
  be3e0780,
  be3e0580,
  9c120380.

  So you might want to check your current key value and use that as the “Undo” value in the batch file instead of the Microsoft default one.

  ** FixTTbTB.bat contents:
  —————————————————–
  @echo off
  setlocal
  if {%1}=={} goto err
  set key=”HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop”
  set switch=%1
  set switch=%switch:”=%
  if /i “%switch%” EQU “F” goto fix
  if /i “%switch%” EQU “U” goto undo
  :err
  @echo Syntax: FixTTbTB F^|U
  :end
  endlocal
  goto :EOF
  :fix
  REG ADD %key% /V UserPreferencesMask /T REG_BINARY /F /D 90320780
  goto end
  :undo
  REG ADD %key% /V UserPreferencesMask /T REG_BINARY /F /D 9E3E0780
  goto end
  —————————————————–
• abajan September 18, 2009 at 7:21 am

  samad909’s solution does indeed work on my computer, Raymond. I went a bit further, though.

  I right-clicked on the taskbar, chose “Properties”, unchecked “Keep the taskbar on top of other windows” and clicked the “Okay” button. Then I went back into the taskbar properties, put the check mark back next to “Keep the taskbar on top of other windows” and clicked the “Okay” button.

  Now the tooltips are displaying as they should and the taskbar still displays on top of other windows.

  I’m running Windows XP Professional SP2.

  There’s really no need (at least in my case) for the overkill of an extra utility. Thanks for the info, though.
• bob September 16, 2009 at 1:57 am

  I just right-clicked on the taskbar and chose “lock the taskbar” and that fixed it, for whatever stupid reason.
• Patrick August 21, 2009 at 11:55 pm

  PSS: I was wrong on the URN – I used to think that part was the URI, but the URI is more of a general term I think. However, the term “URI” applied to “/blah” in “example.com/blah” isn’t incorrect, I don’t know what it’s specifically called…… this is a hell of a tangent.
• Patrick August 21, 2009 at 11:53 pm

  Thanks man! You rock! This was very helpful. This bug has pissed me off for 12 or more years and I’ve never bothered to look for a fix.

  PS: Asking for a URI to find out someone’s website is like asking someone their address without requiring their City, State or ZIP code. While the URI can include the URL, the URL is more specific while asking the URI can be interpreted as any fragment of the URL such as the “/blah” in “example.com/blah” whereas a URL implies the use of the protocol, the domain (authority), the port (if required) and the URN (the part after the domain:port).
• freddyzdead August 13, 2009 at 10:36 am

  Killing explorer and restarting it is a very inelegant shotgun solution. You might have had a dozen windows open and you would have to start them all up again.

  The ToolTipFix utility works well and doesn’t hog any memory.

  This is one of many bugs that have been plaguing the windows gui ever since windows 95. It is just staggering that this gluttinous company could allow these things to persevere even up to now, while ripping hundreds of dollars per windows licence off the planet’s population.
• Chris June 25, 2008 at 6:27 am

  I\’ve found that if you task kill explorer and then it restarts itself not all icons will return to the system tray but the apps still remain running. So that does mess things up just like forcefully task killing any other process. Anyway tooltipfix.exe worked for me! Great program.
• Fixed May 12, 2008 at 12:18 am

  James Craft’s solution posted above works for me.

  Thanks James!
• fakeName May 5, 2008 at 8:33 am

  better yet…

  create a batch file that you can have on your quicklaunch bar.

  tTip.bat contents:
  tskill explorer
• KISS is awesome April 23, 2008 at 4:42 am

  K.I.S.S’ solution is a decent work-around. It worked for me where nothing else did.

  I’m not interested in having to hunt down my taskbar, and I need tooltips to know battery use on my laptop.

  Thanks!
• Randy February 9, 2008 at 1:41 pm

  Thanks so much! This has driven me crazy for a long time!

  I already use AutoHotkey so I wanted to incorporate the source.
  I found the source here:
  forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/731320.html

  I like the idea of having it “fix” itself periodically.
  Even once every several minutes should be sufficient.
  Thanks for the ideas!
• Keep It Simple Sweety January 31, 2008 at 2:01 pm

  SIMPLEST SOLUTION

  Click Start, Run
  In the Open text box type: tskill explorer

  Explorer will stop and restart. Problem solved. No need to run any software.
• dasda January 17, 2008 at 2:45 pm

  thanks, this was driving me crazy.
• bud December 27, 2007 at 9:59 pm

  I did another workaround I read somewhere. Click the Turn Off Computer button, then cancel it (don’t actually turn it off or restart) and the tooltips should work properly again. If your taskbar is not set to auto-hide you might have to check autohide, apply, then uncheck it. Mine is set on autohide so it worked immediately for me.
• jinosuke December 14, 2007 at 7:29 pm

  my method is stop the explorer.exe running from the task manager then run it again.
• mory December 13, 2007 at 2:31 am

  Download NeoSmart Tool use huge ram
  15-20 MB of ram!!! just for fixing a tooltip problem?!!
• In-f3ts December 9, 2007 at 11:59 pm

  Nice try, but that doesn’t work either. Only the fix can help… Thx Ray ;)
• James Craft December 9, 2007 at 1:44 am

  All i do is pick one of the apps in the tray, find it in the start menu, right click it, and choose “sort by name”. Fixed.
• HitMe WithIt December 9, 2007 at 1:01 am

  Great!
  Thank you so much for bringing this little fix to my attention. I have been irritated by this thing since I started with Windows version whatever all those years ago and cannot believe it still happens on XP SP2 Pro!!!
  Finally I can fix it.
  Great site, keep it up ;)
• Raymond December 8, 2007 at 6:13 pm

  samad909, I tried that before writing this article and it didn’t work. That’s why I did not write it in.
• samad909 December 8, 2007 at 6:05 pm

  There is a simpler way to do this without installing anything,

  Click properties in the taskbar, uncheck keep the taskbar on top of other windows, click apply, then recheck it and click ok and wola!