Process.Start("explorer.exe"); won't bring back taskbar

c# winforms process taskmanager
Sebastian Thomas Edward Lawe picture Sebastian Thomas Edward Lawe · Aug 15, 2013 · Viewed 7.8k times · Source

As of right now, I am working on a mock up OS via WinForms to use as a prop for movies. Upon running the application, it kills explorer.exe so that you can't accidentally have the windows task bar show up during a shoot. The issue is, upon closing the mock OS I would like for explorer.exe to be started up again. However, Process.Start("explorer.exe"); brings up an explorer window, and does not re-instate the window taskbar.

I know for a fact, that task manager is more than capable of bringing back the window taskbar via typing "explorer.exe" under a new task, though I've had no luck finding command line arguments to pass to task manager.

Edit: I'm running under Windows 7. As well, I'm going pretty in depth with this mock OS. I'm taking control of quite a few key presses that Windows uses. For this reason, I kill explorer.exe so that I can use key presses such as "Alt-Tab" and display a mock app switcher, etc. The app already runs in full screen, but it is still possible to have the underlying Windows GUI pop back up. I am essentially replacing explorer.exe with my own mock up explorer. Upon closing my custom explorer, I can't seem to get the regular Windows GUI to come back by launching explorer.exe via Process.Start();.

Answer

AceJordin picture AceJordin · Aug 15, 2013

From here:

Try 

Process.Start(Path.Combine(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("windir"), "explorer.exe"));

It appears you must specify the full path to explorer to get the taskbar back.

Related questions

C# Process Killing

I need to write a program in c# that would just start, kill one process\exe that it is supposed to kill and end itself. The process I need to kill is another C# application so it is a local …

Read More
How to set focus back to form after opening up a process (Notepad)?

I open up a notepad from my program using Process.Start() but the new opened notepad covers the screen. But I do want my application to maintain its focus. I similarly (using the same Process.Start) open up MS Excel …

Read More
How can I get the PID of the parent process of my application

My winform application is launched by another application (the parent), I need determine the pid of the application which launch my application using C#.

Read More