Windows taskbar

anyone ever seen it when the windows task bar just vanishes (im not talking about it just auto-hiding) it leaves my icons leave and my windows key will not bring up the start menu. i can still work with apps that were open and can start apps from the task manager. anyone know a fix?

ctrl+ald+del or ctrl+shift+esc
Opens up task manager
Hit File : New Task
Enter "explorer" and hit enter
Might help, might not