Taming Windows 8's impolite Taskbar with DDMM

[Armando]

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.)

[Lutz_]

OT: For me, moving the taskbar to the left screen edge made laptop screens much more tolerable.

[Armando]

Yes, it can help. But I'd still hit the left screen border too many times.
(In the same spirit though, one thing I do is move the applications toolbars and menus to the left to gain maximum vertical space.)

[4wd]

I've used Taskbar Activate for years, works on 7 & 8.

Introduces an indicator and delay when you're in the Taskbar zone.

[Armando]

I've used Taskbar Activate too (beginning of this year), but I found it unreliable depending on the applications running in the background and maybe other factors (?).

I remember running it as admin to circumvent some problems, but was still letting the taskbar show up at inappropriate time, or not showing it all, etc.

It might be something with the combination of services, background applications, etc., if didn't work for me but did for you.