just new

Hi, I have just joined this site as an absolute new beginner to pc's in general.I hope my question will not be to trivial,but Ive tried a few things to mend my problem, here goes.
My taskbar is twice the size it was. I have tried pulling it down with the small double arrows(nothing) unlocked the the taskbar and tried again(nothing) I undid the quick launch box, and that did the trick. I then clicked the quick launch box, all was fine, but every time I hit the apply button(bang) up goes the taskbar. So the only time I have a normal bar, is when the quick launch box is unclicked, but I would like the quick launch to be activated.
thanks for your time reading this post, and hope someone can come with a solution.