So, I'm on my computer, minding my business, and I decide to play CS:S. So I launch Steam, click the game, and it goes to the main menu. I find a server, press join, and my monitors blank out. They come back on and my wallpapers are gone, just black backgrounds, but my icons are there and there's an error message saying something about a DirectX 9 driver problem. At this point I notice the taskbar is gone. So, I ctrl+alt+del, and choose to restart. XP boots up, I type in my password, and my desktop loads as normal but the taskbar still isn't there. I shut down, boot up, and it's the same thing.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[edit]I was trying to remember the name of the process for the bar. I thought it was "systray", so I tried running that, and nothing happened.

Maybe try changing resolutions on your monitor once or twice?

I've actually had that same problem happen to me before, with the same monitor blackout and all. I can't remember how I got my taskbar back, but just fiddling around with it for a little while should make it pop back up. Obviously it wasn't too hard to get it back since I can't remember how I did it.

Changing resolutions didn't help. I don't know how I should try and "fiddle" with it. I've tried hitting the windows key, clicking and dragging with the mouse in the area where it should be, and re-starting the process (can anyone confirm that it's called "systray"?)

It's explorer.exe

Systray was the old name of just the stuff by the clock, but I don't think that's even used anymore (XP/Vista).

what he said

Yeah, you need to run explorer.exe, then from there you need to replace a certain .dll file that's missing. Google "explorer.exe broken" or something like that.

Hmm, alright, well explorer.exe is running because I do have my desktop, and if I try running it again I just got an instance of Windows Explorer. I'll try and track down which .dll I need, thanks.

As a side note, has anyone ever heard of this happening? It seems so random.

Try closing explorer.exe then reopening it.

Also, Steam uses IE for its browser, so don't be horribly surprised if you ended up getting a virus from some CS intro site.

Move your mouse down to the bottom of your screen and see if you get a resize pointer. Your taskbar might just have been sized to 0.

That's what I was hoping. Doesn't seem to be the case.

I'll try closing and reopening explorer.exe, but I assume if it were that easy it would have been taken care of when I rebooted.

Yes, it would have been fixed with a reboot. Google it as suggested, it's a well known (but rare, it seems) problem.

i'd get into the taskbar and start menu part of control panel and see if playing with options in there does anything. You can either go from a folder on your desktop or start + r and type control panel.

Into Hersey's Taskbars and Cream, a mouthful of taskbars in every bite!

Well, that was interesting. I'm not at home right now, but I decided to try that over VNC. Got into control panel, double clicked the "Taskbar and Start Menu" icon, and VNC disconnected with an error message (which I accidentally closed, and isn't showing up in event viewer). Logged back in with VNC and clicking the icon for Taskbar and Start Menu does nothing.

ouch, i'd run "sfc /scannow", that will make sure none of your windows system files have become corrupted.

might ask for the windows cd though...

Ran it, it prompted for the CD as expected. I'll have to wait until I get home to put it in.

Thanks for the help.

Well, ran SFC, rebooted, and as soon as XP was about to load the system just rebooted itself. I tried again, same thing. So I booted to safe mode, logged in, and I had a taskbar. Rebooted again, and it did the reboot loop thing. Went back into safe mode, did a system restore to Sunday (this all happened Monday night), and everything seems fine now, taskbar is back.

So, problem solved I guess? Thanks to all who helped.

It was a registry value.