Drop-Down Menus Won't Stay Open

Hi

I have a weird problem on my PC in that on many (but not all) drop-down menus, when I click the arrow to drop a menu it drops but then immediately closes again before I can even get my mouse moving into the options available - and this happens repeatedly. I may be able to get it to open once in every five or six attempts if I am lucky. This is mainly on dialogue boxes where most drop-down menus are found although not all. For example Word dialogues I have no problems at all.

I've done some searching around and found details of the MS System File Checker and done a scan. This seemingly found corrupt files and repaired them AND produced a 12.5MB log file. However, I still have the problem.

More searching found it could be due to multiple mice found in Device Manager (DM). Looking in my DM I found six entries under Human Interface Devices labelled "HID-compliant device" with no explanation of what they relate to. As far as I am aware I should not expect to find any more two at most, these being a mouse (Logitech optical mouse) and a Wacom Bamboo tablet. I uninstalled the tablet leaving just the mouse and rebooted but I still have five such entries. I also have two unexplained entries under "Mice and other pointing devices" labelled "USB Input Device" - a third such entry is labelled "USB Input Device (Logitech Download Assistant)"

Whilst my tablet was uninstalled and indeed disconnected, I did some further checks using just the mouse. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to make any difference - I still cannot guarantee that a drop-down box will remain open. However, I have noticed that it does not seem to affect the drive drop-down. Only the filename and file type drop-downs - at least in saving and opening dialogues but I'm sure I've had other drop-down menu types where this has also happened.

My first question therefore is: is it safe to remove the excess HID device entries in my DM and do I have to boot into Safe Mode to do it?

Secondly, does anyone know what else may be causing my problem with drop-down boxes?

Any help would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

Tracey

PS I should add that my mouse has a switch on it enabling me to switch it off when not in use. It is therefore switched off most of the time. Also, prior to reinstalling Win7 on 12 October I didn't have this problem and I had exactly the same system hardware config and the same software installed.

Hi

If you read my PS you will see that before I reinstalled Win7 I did NOT have the problem so I remain to be convinced that changing either my mouse OR my tablet would have any real effect. The first time I noticed the problem was after reinstalling and I can't remember how it started - I just started getting this problem when I started using my PC after reinstalling. I don't know at what point it started doing this. Sorry not a lot of help I know but that is all I can tell you.

Tracey

Nothing has changed and as I said in my initial post, my mouse is switched off most of the time. I use my tablet for everything. The ONLY time I don't use my tablet is when I have to boot up using a CD (which is VERY rare) or when the tablet stops working for one reason or another (which again is VERY rare).

I should add that this is not an unknown problem since I've found several forums where this has been raised but so far I've not found a solution that would solve MY problem. Incidentally I'm still waiting to find out about my initial query regarding the excessive number of HID compliant devices in Device Manager. I'd appreciate it if you or someone else could comment on that particular query. Many thanks.

Tracey

I think it should be safe to manually remove all of the HID devices.

Whichever one of them turns out to be the "real" one that Windows needs should be reinstalled on the next reboot (or worst case, by simply reinstalling your tablet drivers).

Hi Corazon

Done that but still have the problem. I can see me having to do yet another reinstall just to narrow this down a bit and hopefully avoid this problem next time around. Before I do that though I'll have another search of the net and see if I come up with anything else that may be causing it.

Tracey