Windows 8.1 taskbar

[rufwoof]

I know, naughty, but I don't know where else to ask

My son's PC has recently been 'upgraded' from win 8 to 8.1, apparently he deferred the enforced upgrade as long as possible until the counter ran out and after a overnight auto-upgrade he's now running win 8.1

I have my puppy Wary Xvesa PC's VGA plugged into the TV's VGA and I'm using his PC to RDP into the puppy (remote desktop/VNC) from within his win 8.1 system.

My problem is that the Win 8.1 taskbar is at the bottom of the screen, but when I minimise a window they just vanish after apparently folding into the taskbar, and any taskbar items that are shown can't be opened. In short the taskbar seems to reflect what was there before the upgrade, but is locked/inaccessible. Left, right etc clicking on the items or empty taskbar space does nothing.

Any idea of how I can open up the taskbar to being functional?

My son's a non-techie and he's at a loss. Apparently he has just been pressing the WIN button to go to the non-desktop main window and then typing in the name of the window he was running to activate it from there.

TIA.

PS 1024x768 pup resolution on a 42 inch smart TV is useful to me as it means I don't have to wear glasses. I've yet to dig out and install a old wireless keyboard with integral roller-ball mouse to complete the arm-chair installation (smart-phone control is ok, but hard on the eyes).