Question : how to autohide the task bar without keeping it on top of other windows.

I have never had success getting the Windows task bar to operate the way it is supposed to operate. I had this problem for years with Win XP on different PCs and now I have the exact same issue with Windows Vista Business on my new laptop. I want the taskbar to autohide but appear when I move the mouse to the bottom of the screen. If I set the taskbar to auto hide and stay on top of other windows then it works the way I want except it frequently won't autohide so that i can see the status bar of various programs. if I set it to autohide and not be on top of other windows, then the task bar never appears unless I hit the Windows key. Moving the mouse to the bottom doesn't help. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong?

Answer : how to autohide the task bar without keeping it on top of other windows.

If you have autohide checked, along with keep on top of other windows, what I find is that if I have a window selected as active (by clicking anywhere in that window) then taskbar will auto hide as it should.  If, however, I click on the taskbar when it is up (when I mouse down to it and click on it) then it will stay up until I select another active window.