Windows 11 · Taskbar

Taskbar frozen or not responding

The taskbar is there, but clicking Start, a pinned icon or the clock does nothing. Before restarting the whole PC, it's worth restarting just the process that draws the bar.

First, confirm it's just the taskbar

Try Alt+Tab and open another program. If the rest of Windows responds normally, the freeze is in Windows Explorer, the process that draws the taskbar, Start and the desktop icons, not the whole PC.

Restart Windows Explorer

1. Ctrl+Shift+Esc opens Task Manager even with a frozen taskbar.
2. Under the Processes tab, find Windows Explorer, right-click it and choose Restart.
3. If it doesn't respond to the right-click, select it and click End task; then, under File › Run new task, type explorer.exe.

Common causes of a freeze

• Another process eating up the PC: check the Performance tab in Task Manager for CPU or disk at 100%.
• A pending Windows update: the system can get slow or the interface can freeze while it installs in the background.
• Low disk space: Windows uses disk space as extra memory; without room, the interface stutters.

If it keeps freezing

Run sfc /scannow in an administrator Command Prompt and check for pending Windows updates.

Meanwhile, Doca's dock stays out of Explorer's way: it's a separate process, so a frozen Windows taskbar doesn't freeze the dock with it.