Programs appear on the taskbar, but they won't open (or maximize) (Windows 8)

You can access Task Manager (shown in your video) by right clicking the Taskbar, so it's a bit of a waste of time adding a shortcut button to that I would have thought.

If you have others that don't work, right click them, choose "Unpin from Taskbar", then create a new shortcut to them.

If it still doesn't work, you might have one or more corrupted system files. To resolve that problem,  do the following.

1. Right click the Start button and go to Command Prompt (Admin).
2. Type: sfc /scannow and hit Enter.

System File Checker will scan the computer for corrupt system files and attempt to repair them. If it can't, you'll get a message to that effect.

If the latter is the case, open another command prompt (Admin), type the following and hit Enter.

• DISM.exe/Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

Here's an exaggerated view of that command to show where the spaces are.

DISM.exe/Online   /Cleanup-image   /Restorehealth

Where it concerns DISM.exe, original system files will be downloaded from Microsoft's servers and used to replace the corrupted ones. After it finishes, run sfc /scannow again to verify integrity.

Estimated running time all told will be about 60-90 minutes.

Here's a screenshot of both in action which I ran on my own machine recently.

still work in the background but I can't see what's going on.

I can't view your video but the symptom sounds like your Taskbar buttons have thumbnails but no Preview and no visible window?   That would mean that the window is opening off the screen, possibly on a second monitor.  In that case you can use the window's Move command (e.g. Alt-Space M) and one Cursor key, Left or Right, to engage the pointer to the hidden window's Title bar.  Then you can drag it back on screen.  Alternatively, provided the window is associated with the monitor you are looking at you could try using the Taskbar's Cascade windows command to both move and resize the window.  Note that you would want to minimize all other windows before you applied the Cascade command.  So, press Win-D and then restore the problem window.  E.g. Restore in the thumbnail's right-click menu would then be inactive but all the other menu items would be available to use. 

Another keyboard shortcut which would be worth trying in case the window really is associated with another monitor is  Win-Shift-CursorRight.  But the above information applies to either case, off-screen or on a different monitor.

 

HTH

Robert Aldwinckle
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YES!!!  Finally a solution that worked.  Alt+Space+M, and then right cursor brought the app back on the screen.  I tried Windows logo + P monitor method, and it didn't work.  That's the only method I usually see.  My IT guys didn't even know this trick.  Thank you!  I was using the Windows Task Manager to maximize the app for over a year...

Hello,

 

Thank you for sharing your experience and resolution on Microsoft Community forum. We really appreciate your efforts and time which you spent on resolving the issue. This information will benefit other community members to solve their similar issues.

 

In addition to that, you are always welcome to post your queries on Microsoft Community forum. We'll be glad to assist you again.

 

I definitely had the corruption problem and it was repaired thanks to your instructions, however it still didn't fix the problem. I'm at my wit's end.

It's only doing this with one program right now Adobe Digital Editions (though I've had the problem sporadically with others), of course it's one I need for work.

Hi,

Thanks for visiting Microsoft Community.

It is good to know that SFC scan and DISM have repaired most of the corrupted files. If the issue is with only one program of Adobe then you may try to uninstall and reinstall the program and then see if it brings any difference.

Keep us updated about the status of your issue.

Regards,

Thanks,

I'd already tried that dozens of times with no luck. 

Finally had to do a complete refresh (re-install without loss of files) of windows 8. Unfortunately it was the ONLY thing that fixed the problem.

Hi,

Thank you for the update on the issue and good to know that everything is working fine after performing refresh on your computer.

In addition to that feel free to post on the forum if you have any more concern related to Windows, we will be happy to you.

Regards,