What the heck?!

[madamesilverspurs]

I was typing an email, and the screen flickered a bit. Next thing I knew, everything in the tray is now stacked vertically on the right side of the screen. What did I do, and how do I undo it?

Yeah, it's Vista.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

1. Is it your system tray icons that have moved

or is it the entire task bar?

[madamesilverspurs]

2. Icons and minimized articles and documents, etc.

If it helps, it still says 'done' in the lower left corner when a page has finished loading, at lower right it shows "100%". But everything else is stacked vertically on the right, with the "start" icon at the top.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

3. It sounds like your task bar has moved

Click on a part of the task bar that has no content (no icons, minimized applications, etc.), and, holding the click, drag the task bar back down to the bottom of the screen. Let me know if that works.

[madamesilverspurs]

4. Okay, that's kinda wild.

It's all back at the bottom again, but the bar is thicker than it was (was about a quarter inch, now 3/4); start icon is back in lower left corner, minimized docs are side by side; but icons on the right are clustered in columns three-deep. Much appreciate your help, by the way!

[canetoad]

5. Heh. This will take patience

Right click taskbar. Untick lock the taskbar.

Now hover your mouse over the edge of taskbar and it will turn into a two headed arrow. You should be able to drag it back into shape - but - it may involve a bit of fiddling with the items in the quick launch (left hand side, near start button) section, which often seem to have a mind of their own.

If it gets too frustrating, drag the quick launch icons onto your desktop temporarily and delete them from your taskbar. Right click taskbar again, select toolbars and untick quick launch.

Monster the taskbar to correct shape and size. Turn on quick launch again and drag your icons back.

[Occulus]

6. Is there a keyboard shortcut to move the taskbar like that?

It sounds like that's what happened. I know sometimes when I'm typing fast, I accidentally use a keyboard shortcut (by accidentally hitting ALT-whatever while typing), and general hilarity ensues.

My favorite one is the one that makes Firefox open a completely blank page in a new Firefox window. I still don't know how I manage that one.

[canetoad]

7. There are some obscure

combinations of clicks and keys that will hide the task bar and otherwise change it, but these should always bring up the Taskbar and Start menu properties dialogue, so it's pretty hard to do accidentally.

I've had the taskbar move around on odd occasions while locked and put it down to a Windows glitch. (Now that's unusual!)