XP - Start - Fly Out Menus Not Working

When computer is freshly booted up, everything works fine for several hours/days. But at some point when clicking on Start button / All Programs - menu comes up, but none of the items in the list respond to a mouse click. Normally when you hover the mouse over any of the entries with an arrow (>) to the right of the entry, a fly out menu will appear and allow you to select anything in the folder. But after this problem appears, the fly out does not appear. Even clicking on any entry in the All Programs menu has no effect. Rebooting will restore the computer to normal operation. So far I have not been able to relate the problem to any particular program or operation. If anyone has encountered this and has a solution, I'd appreciate knowing what you learned.

Jack

 

Hi eturnium, welcome to maorgeeks

It sounds like you have a corrupted registry.

Go to run and type..

Let that do its thing and then go back to run and type...

Say yes to running upon a restart and then restart your PC.
This part may take a while to do, so sit back and grab a cuppa

Then let us know how it's going.

Q

 

Thank you Q.

I've tried your recommendation. It's too soon to tell if the problem is resolved. As I said it can sometimes go for several hours or even a day or more between occurrences.

You are right, the checkdisk process can take quite a while (I have 720gb of disk capacity on this laptop). I can say that the process did not report any problems.

It has been quite some time since I've used the chkdsk process, but if I remember correctly, it reports any errors found and if it finds corrupt files it leaves them in the root directory (C:\) as a 5-digit file name. I checked my root directory, but did not find any files of that description.

I do use a registry cleaner (Wise Registry Cleaner Pro ver. 4 as well as the registry cleaner bundled with IObit's Advanced SystemCare Pro ver. 3.3.4). I would hope either of these would report a corrupted registry, but perhaps not.

In any case, I shall report back if the problem recurs, or if it does not recur in a couple of days, I shall report that as well.

Thanks for your time and effort.

 

Hey eturnium, those registry "cleaners" could be the root of your problem, ccleaner is the only registry cleaner that anyone should you use, unless you really know what your doing it can cause many many problems, i have seen every reg cleaner i have ever tested except ccleaner offer files up for deletion that would cause problems if deleted.

Q

 

Hi Q,

Yes, I do wonder about the registry cleaners at times. Wise seems to be fairly conservative and breaks the changes up into those that are safe to remove, and those that are not. Of course that doesn't mean it is always correct. And I never allow removal of the ones it deems as unsafe.
Fortunately I always make a backup before I clean the registry, and I suppose I can do a system restore to one prior to the time I first encountered the problem. I'll try that if/when the problem reappears.

I haven't tried CCleaner, although I have read excellent reports about it in computer magazines. Guess I should try it out.

Thanks again,
Eturnium

 

I've finally figured out WHAT is causing the problem. But not WHY. So a solution still eludes me.
The cause is Microsoft Money Plus. Within a couple of hours/days of launching MS Money, the fly out menus will quit working. After not launcing MS Money for 7-8 days, I have not had the problem at all.