How can I remove an unwanted fragment of old GUI on my screen? (Windows 7)

Note- this is for Windows 7.. this one is for vista "Ghost" UI elements

So it is not a duplicate.. And also the changing the resolution(the accepted answer on that one), didn't fix it for me.

there may be a windows 7 specific answer


Here is a bit of the desktop.

enter image description here

At some point some old bit of GUI appeared and won't go away. Here it is hovering as I write this question.

enter image description here

It just sits there. And as you can no doubt appreciate, it is a nuisance.

I've tried clicking in the bottom left to mimimize all the windows and clicking again to restore but nope. And i've tried opening a window over it but it just won't paint over it. The unwanted bit of GUI stays on top of anything.

I have tried opening task manager, end tasking explorer and starting explorer again, but nope, still there. so besides restarting windows, what can I do?

added

And I tried the accepted answer here "Ghost" UI elements (and probably some others too) and the accepted answer of changing resolution, and some others I tried there, didn't work


What you can try is to change the theme of your windows from Aero to Classic and then back to Aero again. It could be that something got stuck in the refresh of the different themes that is causing screen artefacts that you are experiencing.


The cleanest way to do it, without shutting down all your programs is to go to:

  1. Start Menu > Shut Down > Switch User
  2. On Welcome screen just log back in

You now have a fresh screen clean of artifacts and you never logged off.