Windows 7 Start Menu: Cannot mouseover or click menu items in folder groups on right-hand pane

[d3v14n7]

Hi all.
Well, I bought Windows 7 Ultimate and installed the x64 version and am generally very happy with it - as one of those people who completely avoided Vista.

This is my first bug/annoyance finding.

I have the chosen the following Start Menu folder/button items to display themselves as menus when they open:-

[ Documents > ]
[ Downloads > ]
[ Computer > ]
[ Control Panel > ]

Normally, a click on any of these opens each contents menu and mouse-over will highlight individual items, to be either left or right-clicked to do with as you wish.
It just now suddenly stopped working.
The menu lists show, but mouse-over selection isn't apparent, and when I try and click any mouse buttons, the menu just closes again and, instead, I get the context menu of whatever was behind where that list had been.
I'm guessing this would be some sort of lost focus issue.
I just wondered if this was common? as I think I just saw a similar issue reported for Vista - amongst a lot of other Start Menu issues, mainly related to the left pane.

As far as I am aware, I was doing nothing of note that could have encouraged this.
I'm hoping it will work again on reboot but I just wanted this bug noted on the web for others experiencing the same issue.

tia, for any input or enlightenment,

d3v

edit: I've just found that the [ Shut down ][ > ] menu is also behaving in the same fashion.

 

[gavin19]

Sounds like something is interfering with Explorer in some way or another. Have you recently installed any programs? Maybe one of them has caused this glitch. It could be spyware interfering with the shell in some way.

Open a command prompt and type in 'sfc /scannow' to check file system integrity first, this will hopefully resolve the problem. Otherwise you could try running Spybot to rule out spyware, or even HijackThis.

 

[d3v14n7]

Firstly, cheers for the quick reply.
No, it's not malware.
I'd have to be quite a fool to screw up a system in three days. Although, admittedly, I haven't switched off ActiveX and Windows Scripting Host yet; I have installed Comodo.
I generally run different tests periodically just to check no-one got in. Even when intentionally clicking on malware to see if it can execute, I never get hit. Disabling ActiveX locks a huge amount of bad guys out from the get-go.
Fyi, I ditched SpyBot and AdAware a long time ago, in favour of SuperAntiSpyware. Though HijackThis is still in my arsenal.
No, I didn't install anything, or else that would have been an obvious first point of call.
As I suspected, it righted itself when I logged off and on again.
It was still an annoyingly inconvenient glitch.
I just wondered if it was a common knowledge, and there was a preventative solution - coming possibly from previous beta or rc users.
The only thing I had been doing previous to it happening was trying to get [My] Computer on the taskbar, as though it was still Quick Launch. It had said "Pin to Windows Explorer" (unlike other shortcuts, which pin happily to the Task Bar) and then I didn't see anything happen.
I'll have to look that one up.

 

[abbygayle]

i have the same problem but worse.
I cant open the start menu and all the icons/thumbnails etc... in windows explorer and desktop can't be seen.
plus the system seems to have slowed immensely.
I tried system restore bec I have no idea what changes I could have done via software installation but it failed to fix the problem.
restarting the pc does not fix anything either.

any ideas how to fix this?

 

[jeroenrody]

same problem - also right click on pinned items

Have exactly the same problem - looks like some parts of W7 refreshing before you can click on it.

It i right click on Word in the taskbar - you usually would see the pinned items - BUT they disappear within
a split second before im able to click on them. So this problems occurs:

a) when you want to restart pc and click on the arrow next to shut down
b) when you want to select a program from the program menu
c) with the pinned items
d) also noticed that screens are flickering a bit

what is the problem here ? please help cause it is so annoying !
rg
jeroen

 

[jesterboomer]

Cannot mouseover or click menu items in folder groups

Same problem. Windows 7 X64 just upgraded over the weekend. Whether I right click or left click the folder list just disappears and nothing happens. This was the one feature I really liked in VISTA!

 

[jesterboomer]

Cannot mouseover or click menu items in folder groups on right-hand pane

A full shutdown and restart cured the problem - for now.

 

[jimhoyle]

Re: Cannot mouseover or click menu items in folder groups on right-hand pane

Just wanted to say that another cure is to simply kill explorer.exe (or many of them) in Task Manager and then run explorer.exe again (File/New Task). That also fixes this very annoying buggy problem.