Windows xp problem

Pub07

Sometimes for no apparent reason my right mouse button stops working and I also cant open any programs - if I double click IE for example nothing happens. I recently defragmented the hard drive, could this have anything to do with it? Or could it be a virus? Im at a loss and its starting to annoy me having to restart my laptop when this happens.

biko

First try with a different mouse for a while. And/or update its drivers.

Er, or do you mean the integrated mouse? Check in the Device Manager that Mice and other pointing devices look ok.

Saruman

If it is the touchpad, try another USB mouse.

One thing, your not by any chance talking about the old bug where by right clicking stops working and the left mouse button becomes the right click?
If so, holding both buttons at the same time usually fixes it.

Im not sure if its a documented bug but its been around since windows 95 days and the only OS i have not seen it happen is Vista.

Pub07

I am 100% sure its not a mouse problem and is a windows problem. Its after happening again now while browsing boards and if I right click anywhere nothing happens. However if I right click on the task bar the pop up menu appears. Also if I start navigating through folders windows explorer crashes or the windows dont look right. Another symptom is if I press ctrl+t in IE the new tab doesn't open.

Saruman

Ah... then its not a mouse problem. Not unless your mouse driver is crashing exporer.

Pub07

Well, an update on this problem. Ive discovered that when things go wrong and stuff won't open, mouse won't click, etc...that there is and iexplore.exe process running that shouldnt be there. For example, system is running v badly, ill kill the process and everything is working fine again. It seems iexplore isn't exiting sometimes when I close it. Also sometimes when things are going bad, I can close the relevant IE window and it'll go back to normal and the process will end naturally.

Any ideas what could be wrong?

Saruman

Check your IE add ons, if ie7 tools - manage add ons.

watty

Firefox 2.x instead of IE7
I only use IE for MSey things that need it.

Boom_Bap

i get the same problem on my machine in work from time to time, iexplorer starts to chew away at memory and doesnt release it. Havent been able to track down the cause and it has happened accross a few versions of IE.

Oh - need to use IE for certain web based apps, otherwise its FireFox all the way.

Saruman

He still needs to fix the cause of the problem as iexplore is integrated into windows so not fixing it might still cause the instability even if he is not using iexplore any more.

Boom_Bap

planning to run process explorer when it happens again to try get to the bottom of it, i'll post anything i find.