can not click icons, intermmitt issue

the13bats · 07 Oct 2019

Odd weird issue i hope i can describe and someone is savvy with, i found nothing much on the net about it and what i did fine didnt help.

the comp is a Dell t7500 that i seldom go online with i just use it as a big heavy mp3 and DVD player
it is up to date on updates and does have avast that gave clean scan as did house call,

i also ran check disk and reinstalled video card drivers, dell site scan shows its all up to date.

what happens is tray icons stop highlighting with cursor and cant be clicked, any shortcuts on desktop still click but the thats all, you can not the reduce, enlarge upper right icons either, so cursor moves just most clicking doesnt work.

it just seems to come and go on its own but control alt delete then cancel will clear it up temporally,

im partly guessing but seems it started when a rented DVD would not load and froze up media player, after that was when i first noticed it, not sure its related,

so far im baffled, thanks for any help

cheers
b

RolandJS · 07 Oct 2019

C:\Users\[accountname]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar
I have an idea, this might just work. The above is the directory chain where my Windows 7 Professional taskbar pins are located. I think that is where your pins are located. 1. Make a 2nd directory in your data drive (partition), suggest naming it TaskbarPinsBackup. 2. If there are pins in the User Pinned Taskbar directory, copy those into the TaskbarPinsBackup. Once done copying, go to your taskbar, the grey taskbar, of course, one by one - unpin all that is pinned there. Grey taskbar empty, go to the TaskbarPinsBackup, one by one, right-click and Pin To Taskbar. When done, Start button, Restart your Windows. Do not attempt to adjust, pin, add to, subtract from, unpin, alter anything inside of the Users Pinned Taskbar directory, all of such attempts will backfire. Let us know if this works, thanks! The above definitely worked for me :)
Tools such as Windows Repair All in One very likely will not work to fix this taskbar icon problem.

the13bats · 07 Oct 2019

thank you and i will read that a few times and be sure i get it and try it a bit later when im feeling better,

keep in mind that tray icons are not the only thing that loses ahem, "click a bility"

the13bats · 07 Oct 2019

im running win 7 professinal, legit version, 64 bit,

okay, when i was trouble shooting this the last two days last thing i did before shutting down giving up for that time being was i unpinned the 3 icons i had pinned next to "start" on the task bar, one was media player the other two were timed shut downs, i like to fall asleep to documentaries playing,

so i have nothing to copy and repin, but I'm will let her run and see if the problem is still there,

thanks

the13bats · 08 Oct 2019

Roland, i do believe you nailed it, many thanks,

the comps been playing a stored documentary running several hours and all's well, and it was doing it in a matter on minutes,
unless I say otherwise later i do believe this one is solved.

the13bats · 08 Oct 2019

bummer, after hours on running fine click working i go to click start and nothing, the desktop icons wouldnt work and only could click to reduce the media player window, control alt delete, cancel got click ability to return,
very baffling, and annoying