Start Menu & Desktop Icons Not Responding!

Hi everyone,


My elderly parents have a one year old Dell laptop (I run the same) and it has been fine until today. The problem they have is that the Start menu and the Desktop icons will not respond. This has never happened to them before today.


There has been no new hardware of software installed recently to have caused this. The laptop was running fine last night when it was last used and powered down.


The laptop is running Win 7 64 bit (Home Premium) and has SP1 installed. It has 4Gb RAM.


I have tried talking my father through booting in safe mode and then doing a controlled shut down to see if this would rectify things – it didn't. I have talked him through re-starting the machine from LKGC (Last Known Good Configuration) – that didn't work.


I have tried to get him to run “explorer.exe” but nothing happens. He has gone into Task Manager to end the task of “explorer.exe” and create it as a new task, but this hasn't worked.


I also got him to try running sfc/scannow in safe mode and that didn't run!


I know that it isn't a virus or malware as they run Norton 360 which is up-to-date.


So, has anyone else had this and how did you fix it?


All help will be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.


Carol

Thanks guys, for your ideas and input. I have just talked my Father through doing a system restore from the F8 screen and it worked! He's delighted and I'm relieved! Thanks for being here and thanks for a great forum.