puzzled by applications that pop up on the taskbar but do not produce a window

[urlwolf]

Sorry, but I'm having one of those days in which you don't even know where to start troubleshooting... I', puzzled by applications that pop up on the taskbar but do not produce a window. This has started recently. I wonder if it's just some nVidia drivers update, or the fact that I'm using an external monitor with weird resolution (Samsung SyncMaster 2345BW, 2048x1152), or what, but things like skype and my beloved rapid environment editor cannot produce a window. They are in the taskbar, but no window to be found.

Any idea how to troubleshoot this? How to even google it?
Thanks!

[Shades]

Sounds somewhat familiar....it is what I experience myself on occasion with self made applications.

My solution is:
I'm running with Sysinternal's ProcessExplorer in the background always. When an application doesn't show me a window, I right-click on the application in the ProcessExplorer overview and select 'Window > Bring to front'. After that the window I expected to see is visible.

[urlwolf]

Thanks Shades, I tried that.
Sounded like a good idea, but it didn't work. For Rapid Env editor, the 'Window > Bring to front' doesn't do anything. For skype, the SMS window (that's the one that pops up hidden) doesn't present 'Window > Bring to front'. Window is grayed out.

I wonder what causes this!

Anyone?

[techidave]

I have an application that does that.  I right click on the tab on the taskbar and choose maximize.  It opens like it should.  It doesn't always do it either.

[f0dder]

When something similar happens, I usually select the process from the taskbar, hit "Alt+Space, M", hit one of the arrow keys, and then use the mouse to move the window in place - that almost always worked. I've had firefox not wanting to come up once or twice, but killing the process and restarting solved that problem.

[Edvard]

I've had instances where an application didn't want to show up. "Minimize" and "Maximize" was the only things that worked.

Autohotkey to the rescue!
After I minimized the app, I would right-click the app in the taskbar and select "Restore".
Then make a .ahk script (Ooh, what I wouldn't give for a AHK command shell):

Code

WinMove,[insert taskbar text here],,0,0

POW! Window in the top-left corner!

jgpaiva's Gridmove would probably work as well.