So my windows 11 task bar decided to disappear (and how to fix it)

I was just happily extracting a zip file when... Boom no more start menu.

I thought ah yeah easy ill just restart and it will come back. 

Nope.. it was gone for good. But i could run task manager and other things seemed to be working in the background. 

Not good. 

Reboot, still broken. 

I was ready to get out my Windows 11 Install USB (which i dont actually have as i just upgraded from windows 10 (doh!)) and then i found this fix! Thank you windows central. 

From windows task manager, CTRL + SHIFT + ESC run a command prompt.

Run a new task

type in cmd and check run with admin priv

then paste the following in, which will alter a reg key and reboot your PC

CMD

reg delete HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\IrisService /f && shutdown -r -t 0

Once it has rebooted you should get your windows task bar back again. 

Yay! and Phew...

That will teach me for running beta builds of windows.

Here is the official fix.

UPDATE 7:10PM PDT: Recently, Windows Insiders in both the Dev and Beta Channels began reporting that Start and Taskbar were unresponsive and Settings and other areas of the OS wouldn’t load. We quickly discovered an issue with a server-side deployment that went out to Insiders and canceled that deployment. If you were impacted by this issue, you can use the following steps to get back into a working state on your PC.

• Step 1: Use CTRL-ALT-DEL and choose to open Task Manager.
• Step 2: Choose “More details” at the bottom of Task Manager to expand Task Manager.
• Step 3: Go to “File” and choose “Run new task”.
• Step 4: Type “cmd” in the “Open” field.
• Step 5: Paste the following (everything in bold):
  reg delete HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\IrisService /f && shutdown -r -t 0
• Step 6: Hit enter, and then your PC should reboot. After rebooting, everything should be back to normal.