This is probobly a simple fix but I just never had this happen to me like this before. My windows taskbar at the bottom of my screen disappeared. I know this sounds stupid but I recently installed a graphics card and had to go through about an hour worth of bugs and I get everything to work but my task bar went AWOL. Any quick solutions?

Move the mouse to the bottom of the screen until the mouse cursor looks like you're about to resize something.
Stretch the Taskbar up, so that it is visible.

To do this with the keyboard, type Ctrl-ESC, Alt-Space, S, and then use the Up Arrow (probably twice) to resize the taskbar.

Once you've done that, right-click the taskbar and click on Lock the Taskbar.

None of those have worked. It's not as if it's collapsed it's just not there.

http://forums.techguy.org/t183420.html

Also see "Round 3" http://patheticperipatetic.blogspot.com/

Will system restore delete any programs that I've added like vendetta or any other games and software.

It's not syware I have two programs and neither of them could find anything so it must be some sort of system failure.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353/

"After you follow the instructions for a clean boot, you may temporarily lose some functionality. If you restore the settings, you restore the functionality, but you may receive the original error message or experience the problematic behavior."

Yeah but will it remove any after market software added to the PC.

What I gathered from the text was that nothing is deleted, but that Windows settings are restored to defaults. If you have a program that is dependent on a setting other than the default, it might not work properly unless you tweak the settings.

Woah...it's not spyware and system restore didn't fix it. It's like it's not broken. Like it's stilling working on the comp but not there. If I knew how to get to my control panel w/o the start button I may be able to fix this.

Have you tried the Cntrl-ESC hotkey?

Doesn't work.

WHat is the make and model of your new graphics card?

You are running XP, right?

SWEET VICTORY! I fixed it hehe. How stupid somehow the stock graphics driver I removed was reinstalled and that's what was making the start menu go bye bye. Since it was still installed it had two screens running, one with the task bar and programs and such and the other the desktop.

I knew I could fix it if I kept at it. I used the windows task manager to run control panel and such.

WOOT now give me a hell yeah!

http://tinyurl.com/c5v2w
It's a Windows Feature (like BSoD)

HAHAHAHAHAH THAT"S AWESOME CUNJO!