Blinking hour glass

My hour glass continually blinks and when I go to open a file the drop down window closes up before I can designate the drive where the file is. Any ideas on what this problem is? This is a very frustrating situation.

 

Sounds frustrating but the only advice I can offer is to run some checks for malware if a restart didn't fix the problem: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407

 

Thanks, Registry Booster worked. This is after trying a repair, Registry Mechanic and Regcure.
What a relief to finally fix this anoying problem