Topic: No right-clicky taskbar icons

So this is strange, suddenly in the last couple of days I'm unable to bring up a menu by right-clicking active program's icons in the taskbar. If I right-click an empty portion of my taskbar the normal menu comes up and all is good. When I right-click on a program button I get nothing. I haven't installed anything new lately or changed any properties. I can't figure out what is going on and so far my Google searches have been no good.

Any clues?

Also, left-clicking the icons is not bringing the program to the front like it should. I have to double-click to minimize it and then click again.

Very strange.

:::11oh1:::

One particular program, or all icons in that area? What happens when you double click the date?

Not the systray, the taskbar.



If I left-click a program's icon it doesn't bring it to the front like it should and if I right-click it no menu pops up.

:::11oh1:::

Stupid me .


Still, this seems to be really unusal behaviour that could only be achived by something hooking into each and every of those menus.
Sure you didn't install anything new? Tried the usual spyware scanners?

Left-Clicking: I have even less clue.
Doest alt-tab work normally?
What happens when you right click the icon in the upper left of a program? Does that window shop up normally?

Does it happen all of the time, or after a while?

I have noticed this happens to me occasionally now, in some areas. But it happens after a while like some sort of memory leak. I beleive its the new google toolbar causing the problem, as when i disable it i never get the problem.

If its all the time then its probably unrelated though


p.s this happened out of the blue too.. since google likes to have full control and update itself.

(Edited by H][RO on 09-10-2006 18:45)

It's very strange and I can find zero on it when I Google.

Alt-tab works just fine as does right-clicking the icon in the upper left.

Ad-Aware found some tracking cookies but that's it.

:::11oh1:::

I've had that happen on my old laptop now and then, thought it was another Windows/Explorer bug...

But as it didn't happen all that often and went away after a reboot I never went out to google for the cause. Hmm.

Sorry I can't provide any specifics either. (Though I don't think it would have been the Google toolbar as I never knowingly installed it and didn't use IE then.)

And now suddenly it's working again.

I've restarted several times to see if it would fix it and finally on this last one it's working again.

Weird.

:::11oh1:::

This kind of effect can be achieved through editing a GPO (Group Policy Object) on the local machine. I know some virii specifically target GPOs to make their effects work, because most scanners don't see the editing of local GPOs (or an apparent push-down of remote GPOs) to be a virus effect.


Justice 4 Pat Richard

just to chime in on a similar problem I had a couple of days ago and then again yesterday.

The scroll on my mouse when I move it down, the page goes down just fine. When I move it up, instead of moving up...it goes all the way to the bottom of the page. Happens on everything. Web browser, explorer, etc...

Could be that KVM switch that I just put in, but not sure.

If I plug the mouse into a different USB port, it comes back. Or I can just reboot about 10 times.

Later,

C:\

Now it's happening again!

Argh that's annoying!

:::11oh1:::

Well on the subject of voodoo-windows, I have a windows that sometimes doesn't recognize it's wlan dongle.
Unplug & plug it, it's detected, but will never get an ip address via dhcp (Setting it by hand -> no communication either).
All I can do is reboot, and restore the image I made when I first set this machine up.
It has developed this symptom at least three times in the last couple of years. Each time it was 'fixed' by restoring the image.
And I still don't have an idea - and it's more trouble finding the source than restoring windows every 9 months...,

sorry, I know, no help for you Krets.