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#1
Some control panel and tray icon popups won't respond to clicks
I just finished getting rid of a bunch of adware and malware from a friend's Windows 7 laptop. It's running quite well now, but there are two remaining annoyances.
One is that when I open the control panel and have the major topic links with small subtopic links showing, about 80% of the subtopic links don't work. All of the main topic links do work. For example, there's a major topic called "Programs" with a subtopic, "Uninstall a program". Clicking on "Programs" takes me to the "Programs" control panel screen. Clicking on "Uninstall a program" does nothing. When in the "Programs" control panel screen, the same thing happens: major topic links work fine, and most of the small, subtopic links don't. Ultimately, I can do what I need in the control panel because the "final" link to what I need seems to work fine.
Similar to this, when I right click on a tray icon and get the popup menu, many of the submenu links do nothing, but some do work.
A similar thing occurs with the start menu. If I search for a command using the search box and several matching links come up, clicking on a link may not work. Clicking programs directly in the start menu works fine.
So there's something about how Windows 7 does these links that is acting wonky.
Obviously I can fix this by doing a heavy-handed Windows reinstall or significant restore. But all the user files and settings are just where I want them and everything otherwise works fine. I have run anti-virus and anti-spywhere and the system is clean. I ran "SFC /SCANNOW" and it turns up no problems.
Is there a way I can fix this problem without a serious Windows recovery action?
Last edited by mbratch; 16 Oct 2015 at 21:06.