126711 - Full-Screen: Windows task bar only shows when Mozilla loses focus, not active full-screen window

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1732517

(Core :: Widget: Win32, defect)

Description

[:deanis74]

1. Enter full-screen mode
2. Note that the task bar is hidden, which is a good thing
3. Ctrl+N to open a new window

Expected Results: Task bar is visible

Actual Results: Task bar remains hidden

Comment 1

[:deanis74]

Most likely related: Switch back from another app to that new, non-full-screen
window and the task bar hides.  It should only hide when the full-screen window
is the active window.

Comment 2

[[e-mail]]

On Windows 95 the taskbar hides if any window is full screen, active or not.
Don't you just love Microsoft? 

Comment 3

[:deanis74]

*** Bug 151564 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[gerweck]

I also tried this with the most recent version of Internet Explorer and it
behaves exactly the same way as does Firefox on my machine: the task bar is hidden.

It would be nice for the Mozilla/Firefox/Netscape team to invent a workaround. 
I strongly suggest that it be a user preference though, defaulting to hide the
taskbar.  It is *always* a bad thing to make your user interface violate the OS
standard unless there's an important reason why it should.  Letting the user
break the UI standard isn't really much of a problem.

Comment 5

[Ray Kraesig [:rkraesig]]

This should now be resolved as bug 1732517.

This really does seem to be a misbehavior on Windows' part, so it's been implemented as the default behavior (much like Chromium/current-day Edge does, albeit in a different fashion). Nonetheless, if you need or want the original behavior, the user-preference widget.windows.alternate_fullscreen_heuristics can be set to false to restore it.