My cat jumped on the keyboard and now no password prompt appears.

[Chrissyharp]

I have searched for solutions but they all seem to involve being able to click on restart and guess what? That's missing too.
All I have is a pretty picture, the date and time, the volume icon, and battery icon.

 

[Mog]

Try pressing the space bar on your keyboard or left clicking the mouse and drag up.

 

[Bighorn]

All I have is a pretty picture, the date and time, the volume icon, and battery icon.

At least you are seeing the right side of the Taskbar that contains those icons. Try the 3-finger salute, Ctrl+Alt+Del to see if you can get Task Manager to show. Maybe right-click at the position where the Start button should be to see if you get the menu. Or carefully right-click a blank area close to but not touching one of those icons to open Taskbar Settings.

 

[Garyw]

Try this:
Press [Windowkey] and [s] at the same time.
In the search box, type taskbar
Left click on Taskbar settings.
Check all of the taskbar settings.
If all are correct, try reversing Automatically hide the taskbar in desktop and reboot.
Try reversing Automatically hide the taskbar in tablet and reboot.
Try reversing Lock the taskbar setting and reboot.

Hope one of these helps.