Starcraft 2 No longer going on top of Start Bar

MurderMan

United States47 Posts

January 25 2011 06:18 GMT

I am playing Starcraft 2 and ever since the most recent patch, if I play starcraft 2 in full screen windowed mode, I can't get the start bar to disappear anymore. This is especially frustrating since I can't scroll downwards anymore while playing in this mode.

Here is a screenshot of the issue:
http://i56.tinypic.com/6nv3ap.jpg

I basically can't play starcraft anymore. Does anyone know how to fix this issue? I'd prefer not to remove my start bar or change it to autohide. I want it back like it used to be, when starcraft 2 was my active window, it was above the start bar. Does anyone know how to solve this issue?

ReketSomething

United States6012 Posts

January 25 2011 06:23 GMT

Perhaps start bar always on top became somehow checked? Not sure though, that would be what my guess would be.

good luck!

Boblhead

United States2577 Posts

January 25 2011 06:31 GMT

simply just have the bar on autohide if it messes with you, or try and alt tab.

MurderMan

United States47 Posts

January 25 2011 06:38 GMT

I've tried alt tabbing and there's no feature that puts start bar always on top.

I'd prefer not to hide the task bar because the autohide feature annoys me when I get messages in skype and it doesn't blink at me b/c it's hidden. I wouldn't want to put autohide on just for starcraft.

AyameStarcraft

United Kingdom192 Posts

January 25 2011 06:56 GMT

What's wrong with leaving it fullscreen non windowed? Does that remove the issue? I'll do a google trip later and if noone has answered by then I'll post my findings

MurderMan

United States47 Posts

January 25 2011 07:07 GMT

On January 25 2011 15:56 AyameStarcraft wrote:
What's wrong with leaving it fullscreen non windowed? Does that remove the issue? I'll do a google trip later and if noone has answered by then I'll post my findings

Full screen non-windowed causes massive lag issues when I alt tab. Since it reloads the graphics and causes black flashes as it transitions in and out of the sc2 window.

MurderMan

United States47 Posts

January 26 2011 17:18 GMT

anyone have any idea how to fix this yet?

timestep

Canada73 Posts

January 26 2011 17:29 GMT

I'm pretty sure thats the ways its supposed to be.

It's in windowed mode so the start bar will show up.
The only way to rectify it would be to go full screen.

Sorry but its that or a clean reinstall or sc2.

Stropheum

United States1124 Posts

January 26 2011 19:03 GMT

Have you tried changing the sc2 settings to full screened then back to windowed full screen?
Might just be a glitch where the SC2 interface isn't recognizing the bar for whatever reason. Reapplying the settings might fix it.

vicariouscheese

United States589 Posts

January 26 2011 19:03 GMT

#10

On January 27 2011 02:29 timestep wrote:
I'm pretty sure thats the ways its supposed to be.

It's in windowed mode so the start bar will show up.
The only way to rectify it would be to go full screen.

Sorry but its that or a clean reinstall or sc2.

if you watch any of the tons of sc2 streams, there are many players who play fullscreen windowed, and this is not an issue.

blue`

United Kingdom119 Posts

January 26 2011 19:05 GMT

#11

Try unlocking it and dragging it to the side, then back to the bottom and locking it again. Aside from that I can't seem to recreate the issue

GoldenH

1115 Posts

January 26 2011 19:39 GMT

#12

This tends to happen when you have a program blinking or something in the system tray demanding attention. My suggestion is to close everything possible before starting Starcraft 2.

Dugrok

Canada377 Posts

January 26 2011 19:43 GMT

#13

On January 25 2011 15:38 MurderMan wrote:
I've tried alt tabbing and there's no feature that puts start bar always on top.

I'd prefer not to hide the task bar because the autohide feature annoys me when I get messages in skype and it doesn't blink at me b/c it's hidden. I wouldn't want to put autohide on just for starcraft.

There's no feature for SC, but there is a feature for Windows. Just making sure, because the suggested wasn't entirely clear. That said, mine is enabled and when I run SC, everything works normally. /shrug

MurderMan

United States47 Posts

January 26 2011 21:08 GMT

#14

Perhaps start bar always on top became somehow checked? Not sure though, that would be what my guess would be.

I did some research and found out that this feature was removed in windows 7.

Have you tried changing the sc2 settings to full screened then back to windowed full screen?

Tried it, doesn't work.

This tends to happen when you have a program blinking or something in the system tray demanding attention. My suggestion is to close everything possible before starting Starcraft 2.

Unfortunately, this does not work either.

Try unlocking it and dragging it to the side, then back to the bottom and locking it again. Aside from that I can't seem to recreate the issue

This did not work either, although it had an interesting effect. When I have the task bar on the left right or top panes, when I try to move my mouse to it, it won't let me move my mouse onto the start bar, which somewhat solves the issue of being unable to scroll, however putting it on those panes (left, right, or top) pushes the SC2 window down, left, or right causing the window to extend beyond the area of my screen. Which puts part of my SC2 window off the screen, causing other issues.

I have no idea how all of this happened... It's so frustrating! I'm not sure how to solve this issue and blizzard won't respond in their forums...

GoldenH

1115 Posts

January 27 2011 07:17 GMT

#15

last ditch is to force close explorer.exe from task manager while running sc2. Its a more drastic version of autohide. You could also just resize the task bar to its minimum size, but then you can't scroll in that direction.

Paradice

New Zealand431 Posts

January 27 2011 08:12 GMT

#16

A bit of googling says others have linked the "DPI Settings" Windows setting to this bug appearing in other fullscreen-windowed games, so try tweaking that?

Or else it's not a bug, Windows is trying to tell you something. The notification area is much larger than Windows 7 shows by default - maybe one of those icons actually wants attention (the one with the exclamation point?)

When an app sets Windowed mode, it's telling windows "hey it's ok to interrupt me and share video resources" which is the key difference between that and true fullscreen mode...

MurderMan

United States47 Posts

January 27 2011 19:43 GMT

#17

Tried it, doesn't work. It still won't scroll...

A bit of googling says others have linked the "DPI Settings" Windows setting to this bug appearing in other fullscreen-windowed games, so try tweaking that?

How do I change those settings?

Or else it's not a bug, Windows is trying to tell you something. The notification area is much larger than Windows 7 shows by default - maybe one of those icons actually wants attention (the one with the exclamation point?)

I actually did that already, I updated my windows and downloaded all of those updates (from the exclamation point) and it's still not working

MurderMan

United States47 Posts

January 29 2011 18:09 GMT

#18

Any idea what to do?

MurderMan

United States47 Posts

January 31 2011 17:49 GMT

#19

Bump

MurderMan

United States47 Posts

February 01 2011 23:56 GMT

#20

Any more solutions?

slashwrist

Sweden6 Posts

February 07 2011 07:40 GMT

#21

try the old program for EVEonline, ShiftWindow, it should be able to grab the SC2 window and force it to be infront.

Marcus420

Canada1923 Posts

February 07 2011 17:24 GMT

#22

play full screen, less qq.

FizzleIzzle

United States8 Posts

February 11 2011 09:48 GMT

#23

Was having the same problems after installing some third party themes that inadvertantly changed the DPI settings.

How to Change:
Right click on Desktop and select Screen Resolution
In this Dialog look for "Make Text and Other Items Larger or Smaller" and click it

This takes you to the DPI settings. You should try altering this because I found on my machine any custom DPI settings other than the Windows defaults (Small, Medium and Large) cause the buggy bug which you experience

I hope this works for you.

I completely understand the need for Windowed Fullscreen Mode to be displayed properly b/c I also use Skype and like to play music in the background. Having the option to quick Alt+Tab is a must for being able to control these things as well keeping an eye on network stuffs.

buCk-

United States47 Posts

April 07 2011 01:40 GMT

#24

Sorry to bump this old thread, but has anyone found a solution to this?

I always had it so in windowed mode, the bottom of Starcraft 2 was just above my task bar, so that my mouse would stay confined and I didn't have to auto hide my task bar. But, today I loaded Starcraft up and its slighter longer vertically and there doesn't seem to be a way to resize it.

I can't play fullscreen because I'm using my 32" T.V. as a monitor, and it lags hardcore in fullscreen in the mid to late game.

Zeiryuu

Philippines231 Posts

April 07 2011 02:12 GMT

#25

On April 07 2011 10:40 buCk- wrote:
Sorry to bump this old thread, but has anyone found a solution to this?

I always had it so in windowed mode, the bottom of Starcraft 2 was just above my task bar, so that my mouse would stay confined and I didn't have to auto hide my task bar. But, today I loaded Starcraft up and its slighter longer vertically and there doesn't seem to be a way to resize it.

I can't play fullscreen because I'm using my 32" T.V. as a monitor, and it lags hardcore in fullscreen in the mid to late game.

Weird. Your PC should perform better when you have SC2 in non-windowed full screen. And about the problem in this thread, I think the OP needs to uncheck the "Keep taskbar on top of other windows" checkbox in the Taskbar properties dialog.

Buttney

1 Post

August 19 2017 18:07 GMT

#26

Right click and unpin all your shortcut icons on the start bar. More importantly unpin open programs such as Google Chrome. This causes the start bar to be active and "on-top" worked for me.

zheland

1 Post

July 02 2022 19:52 GMT

#27

I succeeded to hide the taskbar completely in Windows 11. It might also work on Windows 10. Taskbar not shown when hovering mouse cursor over the bottom of the desktop screen. SC2 map scrolling works correctly when the cursor is at the bottom edge of the screen.

To do this, create a file with a ps1 extension, for example HideTaskbar.ps1. Then write the following in it:

$Signature = @"
[DllImport("user32.dll")]public static extern bool ShowWindowAsync(IntPtr hWnd, int nCmdShow);
"@
$Style = 0 # SW_HIDE
$WindowHandle = (Get-Process -Name explorer).MainWindowHandle
$Win32ShowWindowAsync = Add-Type -MemberDefinition $Signature -Name "Win32ShowWindowAsync" -Namespace Win32Functions -PassThru
$Win32ShowWindowAsync::ShowWindowAsync($WindowHandle, $Style) | Out-Null
$Win32ShowWindowAsync::ShowWindowAsync($WindowHandle, $Style) | Out-Null

To start it, right-click on it and select "Run with PowerShell". After it is executed, the taskbar will completely disappear. Desktop icons remain. Windows key continues to work and when pressed the menu appears out of nowhere.

This code will try to move the exlorer (with taskbar) to the background twice. I don't know the details of why the code needs to hide the window twice and why it completely disappears after that. But it solves the issue itself. Sometimes the script doesn't work the first time and you have to run it again.

In order to put the taskbar back in place use another script. Create a file with a ps1 extension, for example RestartExplorer.ps1. And write the following in it:

Stop-Process -Name explorer

To start it, right-click and select "Run with PowerShell". This script will stop and restart the explorer and the taskbar as well.

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