Hi
If I right click on my Windows XP taskbar and go to Toolbars, all of
the entries for the different toolbars (address, links, quick launch
etc) are greyed out. I've tried a few different options with the
taskbar settings (locked and unlocked it, run the classic XP interface
as well as the win2k lookalike) Any ideas? I've already spotted the
MSKB article concerning "classicshell" in the registry and this wasnt
the problem. Also, the corresponding IE right-click toolbar menu is
absolutely fine.
T.I.A.
Tom

Hello Tom,

Thank you for your question. 

ActiveWin has this suggestion:
http://www.activewin.com/askaw/archive/113000.shtml

"Hi - I've lost the launch pad toolbar from the windows task bar! I
use it quite a lot, but on start up yesterday it was missing. Right
clicking on the task bar shows all of the 'toolbars' options grayed
out. I haven't loaded any new programmes, drivers or added any new
hardware. Several re-boots and restoring registry settings from Norton
Zip Rescue have made no difference. I'd be grateful for suggestions
how to get it back, short of a full reinstall (which I did only a
month ago, with no problems until now!). Is there a way to edit the
shell options or something? I've trawled the net for any reference to
this problem but can find nothing. I have Windows 98 (not SE), a PII
300 processor and 64mb of RAM. Thanks in advance for your help.
 
Solution 1 

Since the taskbar toolbars are user-dependent, they may appear grayed
out if you are not logged in as a user. That means that if you clicked
cancel when logging in (not typing a password) you will not be able to
access certain user-dependent features, such as taskbar toolbars. Log
out, and log in as a user, and that may help. If you are logging in as
usual and this still happens, then I don't know what else to suggest.
Good luck."

Another suggestion comes from Liberty Boys
http://libertyboy.free.fr/computing/tips/#w_ta_got

"Grayed out toolbar

If everything is grayed out when you right click the taskbar and point
to toolbars, you need to enable Internet Explorer on Tweak UI's IE4
tab. You may also need to enable the active desktop and allow changes
to the active desktop, also on the IE4 tab."

So there are two interesting ideas to check there: 1) if you have
tweakui, make sure that IE is enabled and 2) see if active desktop is
enabled.

Checking over at Usenet Groups I found the following:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=eHmNRbqVCHA.3360%40tkmsftngp11&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dxp%2B%252Btaskbar%2B%252Btoolbars%2B%252Bgreyed%2BOR%2Bgrayed%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3DeHmNRbqVCHA.3360%2540tkmsftngp11%26rnum%3D1

"Hi all.  I upgraded from win98 to XP HE in Nov/2001, and the first
thing I did after upgrading was to install and try out most of the
power pack options.  I removed most of the ones I tried, but kept
tweakui; cmdhere and magnifier - but noticed that magnifier didn't do
anything.

Then a few days later I noticed that when I right-click on the
taskbar, then select the Toolbars option, all of the options on that
right-click menu are disabled (grayed out).  I don't know if this was
related to the power pack installation - this was the first time I had
looked at this menu since upgrading to XP...


I finally sorted this out, and am posting the solution in case anyone
else out there has the same problem.  A previous version of tweakui
allowed me to set the Key value "ClassicShell" to 1 (a setting called
"Shell Enhancements", that I can't find in my current version of
tweakui).  I found this solution in the support forum at
http://www.winguides.com :

open the registry and navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Click on Explorer in the left pane and look in the right pane for this
entry.

Classic Shell

Right click on it and choose delete from the menu.
Reboot or log off and back on for the change to take effect."


I included that just in case this was not the Classic Shell cure you
had come across.

And at : http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=1308501c26efe%2486009990%2436ef2ecf%40tkmsftngxa12&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dxp%2B%252Btaskbar%2B%252Btoolbars%2B%252Bgreyed%2BOR%2Bgrayed%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D1308501c26efe%252486009990%252436ef2ecf%2540tkmsftngxa12%26rnum%3D2

"I changed something in one of my user accounts using XP 
Protector 0.5 and now I can't customize the Toolbars on 
the taskbar...if I right-click on the taskbar and go to 
Toolbars everything is greyed out...Now I can't find the 
setting that did that on XP Protector....I know there's a 
registry value I can change to fix this but don't know 
which one....can somebody help me please?...I'm running 
XP Home Edition if that helps.........Thanks.


That sounds like you have a value named "NoCloseDragDropBands' under
the key:
[HKEY CURRENT USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

If the value exists, delete it.  You might also look for the same
key/value under HKEY LOCAL MACHINE."

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=9qcgn6%24bm6%242%40suaar1ab.prod.compuserve.com&rnum=4&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dxp%2B%252Btaskbar%2B%252Btoolbars%2B%252Bgreyed%2BOR%2Bgrayed%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D9qcgn6%2524bm6%25242%2540suaar1ab.prod.compuserve.com%26rnum%3D4

Another take on this being caused by TweakUI

After an extensive search, I 'm afraid that these are the only
discussions and cures that relate to your problem. Hopefully, one of
the above suggestions will get your toolbars functioning again.



Search Strategy:

xp +taskbar +toolbars +greyed OR grayed

I trust my research has provided you with potential solutions. If a
link above should fail to work or anything require further explanation
or research, please do post a Request for Clarification prior to
rating the answer and closing the question and I will be pleased to
assist further.

Regards,

-=clouseau=-

Wonderful- I'm a busy professional and to come up against a niggling
problem like this was a nightmare. Thank you for your comprehensive
research.