I'm sure I'm not the only one to find the Taskbar annoying (see below). So I thought I'd share that silly little trick.
Windows XP allowed me to NOT have my taskbar always on top. That way it would just disappear behind other windows. To see/access it, I just had to press the Windows key.
Windows 8/8.1 doesn't offer that mode so I'm stuck with autohide (+ always on top, of course) to gain real estate on a small screen.
The problem with autohide is that hitting the screen border inadvertently with the mouse will trigger the taskbar. And it'll impolitely get in the way.
Tried many software to either 1- completely hide the taskbar and control it with a key or simply, 2- or constrain the mouse out of screen borders (so that the taskbar won't pop up when it's on autohide). Most of them won't work properly, 100% of the time; i.e. there are always times where the taskbar will show up or not show up at all, etc.
Anyway: for me, the simple
DDMM finally solved the problem. Found it thanks to that topic :
Looking for a Mouse/Cursor restriction tool ... ?.
With it you can define a limit through which the mouse can't travel. It's been flawlessly working for the last 3 days.
Taksbar is now behaving properly. To access it, I just move the mouse through the defined screen limit by keeping the ctrl key pressed, or by pressing Windows+Z.
(One little bug, maybe -- not enough to be a showstopper : Using Ctrl+Alt+some other key will sometimes make the Ctrl key "stick", allowing the mouse to move freely through the imposed limits. Pressing Ctrl again solves the problem.)