Windowed Fullscreen Game, Dual Monitor, Taskbar issue

Tried to make a somewhat descriptive title...

I just upgraded from 7 to 8.1 and finding there are some minor differences I have to learn/fix to behave how I want. My issue is this: when I'm playing WoW in windowed fullscreen on my primary monitor I typically have VLC, Chrome, and Skype (the desktop version, not the app) open in my second monitor.

Occasionally I'll click out of the game onto the second monitor to respond to some skype messages (skype typically falls behind chrome, or VLC). Rather than Alt-Tab, I simply would click on my second monitor (either on VLC player or Chrome open on Facebook for example), and the taskbar would show up on my main monitor (since the focus is no longer on the full screen game). I have my taskbar auto-hide, however if a skype message was available it would pop up orange as you can imagine.

In Windows 8.1 I'm finding that if I click on VLC (maximized or just regular size window) on the second monitor, the taskbar doesn't show up on my main monitor...however when i click into Chrome on that second monitor, the taskbar will show up.

Anyone know why this might be happening? In Windows 7, it would pop up regardless of what program I would click into.

Let me know if additional information is required.

Thanks!!!