Taskbar Flickering constantly. How do I make it stop?

Hi,

One thing that might help is Right Click TaskBar - Properties - Notification Area tab - check Power, Network,
Sound and Clock - APPLY / OK - if already checked then UnCheck - APPLY / OK and then go back and recheck.

Dell has a few specialty notification programs such as ones that tell if the NumLock/CapsLock/F-Lock are on
and those might cause the issue.

Try Right Click TaskBar - Task Manager and End Process on the Dell Utility type processes one at a time to
see if those affect the issue.

Some programs such as Chrome can cause this issue. Does it do it if nothing is running on the TaskaBar?
If so then it sure would point to the Notification Area (near clock) or the Quick Launch (near Start Button).
Try Right Click TaskBar and close all toolbars to see what effect it has.

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Other than the above its a process of elimination exercise :

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

How to troubleshoot performance issues in Windows Vista
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950685

Optimizing Microsoft Windows Vista Performance
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959062

To see all that is loading bootup - wait a few minutes without doing anything - then Right Click TaskBar -
Task Manager - take a look at Appplications - Processes - Services - this is a quick reference (if you have
a little box on Lower Left - Show for All Users then check that).

How to Check and Change the Startup Programs in Vista
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/79612-startup-programs-enable-disable.html

A quick check to see which are loading is Method 2 there - using MSCONFIG then post a list of those here.
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Tools that should help :

Process Explorer - Free - Find out what files, registry keys and other objects processes have open, which DLLs
they have loaded, and more. This uniquely powerful utility will even show you who owns each process.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

Autoruns - Free - See what programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you
login. Autoruns also shows you the full list of Registry and file locations where applications can configure auto-
start settings.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

Process Monitor - Free - Monitor file system, Registry, process, thread and DLL activity in real-time.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

There are many excellent free tools at Sysinternals
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx

WhatsInStartUP - Free - This utility displays the list of all applications that are loaded automatically when Windows
starts up. For each application, the following information is displayed: Startup Type (Registry/Startup Folder),
Command -Line String, Product Name, File Version, Company Name, Location in the Registry or file system,
and more. It allows you to easily disable or delete unwanted programs that runs in your Windows startup.
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/what_run_in_startup.html

There are many excellent free tools at NirSoft
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/index.html

Window Watcher - Free - Do you know what's running on your computer? Maybe not. The Window Watcher tells all, reporting every window created by every running program, whether the window is visible or not.
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptwinwatch.asp

Many excellent free tools and an excellent newsletter at Karenware
http://www.karenware.com/

Hope these help.

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Rob - Bicycle - Mark Twain said it right.