Anyone know what could be wrong when right click does not work when in a My Computer screen? The menu does not appear and all I get is the hourglass busy icon. It stays that way until the screensaver kicks in!!

The right click works in every other situation!!

...It stays that way until the screensaver kicks in!!..

Try disabling your Screensaver, you didn't say-but how much memory do you have? Sounds like you are running low on memory/resources. If you have a bunch of programs running in the background ( and the screensaver enabled ), you could be maxing out window's capabilities.
Try to shutdown/remove some of those background services if you don't need them ( stuff you see in the tray next to the clock take up memory as they run constantly ).




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iisbob

"It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either."
-Mark Twain { Samuel Clemen's }

[This message has been edited by iisbob (edited 03-07-2002).]

Also, you didn't give much info on the system config, but if it's a laptop and you're using an external PS/2 mouse rather than the scroll pad or scroll button on the keyboard, make sure you have the Laptop PS/2 disabled in the BIOS.

If you're only running one mouse, perhaps it's new, or not the original that came with the machine, go to device manager and make sure that you only have one mouse there. Also check the Driver information, you could have multiple Mouse Drivers loaded.

If so, remove the mouse in Device Mgr. and let windows recognize and load the appropriate driver.

Good Luck.

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Jack of all trades, master of none.

I have Win 98 - PII 350 mHz 64K RAM

Thanks for all the advice but still no luck. Right click still working for everything except when in My Computer where I still get the `permanent' hourglass and no menu. The copy, paste etc buttons in the ordinary Windows menu line at top of screen also returns the `permanent' hourglass

Going crazy with this problem as unable to use any copy or paste functions

Any more ideas most welcome!!

Sometimes repairing Internet Explorer with the IE Repair Tool in System Information, or uninstalling and reinstalling IE will fix your problem.
If these do not work, then do a backup and reinstall Windows on top of itself.
If still no luck, then the only sure cure for your problem is to do a 'clean' reinstall of Windows, i.e., backup critical files, format the hard drive, and reinstall everything.

Thanks ski - the repair tool did not solve the no right click problem but it did solve another one that I had not written about!!

I am now working on uninstalling IE 5.5 to see if that solves the tight click problem but apparently it is not so easy - am reading up the MS Knowledge Base on the subject

Funny thing about that right click problem - it works in every other place EXCEPT My Computer and Windows Explorer. But, just to show its tempermentalness (if there is such a word) I saved a new file to disk today and then decided I wanted to move it and sure enough the right click worked!! But only on this file - no others!!

John

Originally posted by ski:
Sometimes repairing Internet Explorer with the IE Repair Tool in System Information, or uninstalling and reinstalling IE will fix your problem.
If these do not work, then do a backup and reinstall Windows on top of itself.
If still no luck, then the only sure cure for your problem is to do a 'clean' reinstall of Windows, i.e., backup critical files, format the hard drive, and reinstall everything.

The copy, paste etc buttons in the ordinary Windows menu line at top of screen also returns the `permanent' hourglass

Going crazy with this problem as unable to use any copy or paste functions
It would be interesting to know if you can copy and paste using CTRL+C and CTRL+V

It sounds like registry corruption or a resource/memory problem as iisbob suggested. Have you reduced the applications running in the background and done such things as clear cache, scandisk and defrag. I wouldn't jump in and reinstall/reformat just yet.

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Take nice care of yourselves - Paul
"There are old pilots and bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots."

To Paul - Yes, I have tried all those things (most several times) and still without luck. The Ctrl C produces the same perpetual hourglass too. The only way to get out is to do a CtrlAltDelete and it tells you that the item is `not responding'

Doubt it is memory or resources as the same thing happens even in Safe Mode

So it seems I have a Registry problem - anyone know how to fix it?

John

Originally posted by Paul Komski:
It would be interesting to know if you can copy and paste using CTRL+C and CTRL+V

It sounds like registry corruption or a resource/memory problem as iisbob suggested. Have you reduced the applications running in the background and done such things as clear cache, scandisk and defrag. I wouldn't jump in and reinstall/reformat just yet.

OK. It seems like drag-n-drop/copy paste are not working at all. (BTW can you drag-n-drop, which is really just yet another way of copy-paste)?

1. Have these been disabled in Internet Explorer (InternetOptions<>Security<>CustomTab) by any chance?

2. Is the CV(Clipboard Viewer) installed (ControlPanel<>AddRemove<>WindowsSetup<>SystemTool s)?

If the CV is installed can it capture a screen shot with PrtCr? Even if it is installed I would uninstall it and reboot and reinstall it.

If neither of the above are applicable: are you absolutely happy with all your memory settings? Let us know of any progress. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif


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Take nice care of yourselves - Paul
"There are old pilots and bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots."

To Paul - many thanks for your interest to help me solve my problem

1. Yes, can drag and drop in My Computer - just tried it. Only problem now is to get the file back where it belongs - the only way I know is DOS since my copy/paste/delete etc functions are not working

2. The copy/paste functions are enabled in Security

3. Yes, CV is installed and works. I just uninstalled/reinstalled it and it still works!! Captures screen shots OK

4. Re Memory settings. I don't know about these - I ran the MEM program in DOS and all looked OK to me. How can I capture this info to post here or send to you if you would like to check them out?

I emphasise that it is only in My Computer/Windows Explorer that the right click functions menu does not come up and none of these menu functions work from the buttons across the screen top (or even Ctrl C etc). However in any other application there is no problem. I can even cut, paste etc in this very screen in which I am typing this message!!

LOL http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif These odd problems intrigue me and solving them helps to understand the OS.

MyComputer IS Windows Explorer in reality; only with the folders not showing. To convert it into Windows Explorer just click the folders button on the toolbar. Had you done this after moving your file you should have been able to drag-n-drop your file back to where it came from.

You can setup MyComputer to always open like Windows Explorer (ie with the folders showing in the left pane and with all the folder trees collapsed) if you want to (it is how I prefer it). To do this you go Tools<>Folders<>FileTypes tab, then scroll down to extension type N/A and select Folder. (Don't select File Folder.) Click the Advanced button, then select the action Explore. Click the Set Default button, then click OK and Close.

This doesn't help you solve your problem though. It's weird that the same R-Click Copy works in IE since all you have to do to effectively turn Windows Explorer into IE is to enter an external URL in the Address Bar. Vice-versa, entering a Folder in the address bar in IE turns it back into Windows Explorer!!

Since it does work for you in IE it would seem to rule out memory and resources as the cause. It would be interesting to know if you open IE and can R-click and copy and then click on the folders button and doubleclick on a folder, whether you could still R-click and copy.

BTW; if the relevant folder buttons do not show on your applications then go View<>Toolbars and ensure that Standard Buttons is ticked. If the button you want isn't there then click customise and add it.

You may still have to reinstall your OS and/or IE to reset what is wrong; possibly a super-guru out there knows a simple answer though. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/tongue.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/tongue.gif

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Take nice care of yourselves - Paul
"There are old pilots and bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots."

P.S. I may have got a bit carried away with cut/paste because of course you can see NO shortcut menus at all when you R-click in MyComp or WE.

[This message has been edited by Paul Komski (edited 03-17-2002).]

Well John, how about this?
Did this just start?
Have you run a virus scan?
Try this. Restart in DOS, type "scanreg_/restore" (no " " and use a space in place of the _ ) and see if there is a date prior to this happening. If so, pick that and see if it helps. If not try "scanreg_/fix" (same as above).

Good luck http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/cool.gif

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A real Christian is one who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.
Frank's Place (http://dreamwater.net/tech/frankscomp/)

To Paul:

1. Thanks for the tip re folders. I will look later as to whether I want to set up MC to open as WE

2 You said 'It would be interesting to know if you open IE and can R-click and copy and then click on the folders button and doubleclick on a folder, whether you could still R-click and copy.'

I actually R-clicked on part of your post and then opened up folders and 2-clicked on a folder and then a Word file and was able to paste the copy into it.

3. Looking like I really need that super-guru!!

To Bassman:

Thanks. Tried the `restore' and there were 3 entries from the past 3 days so guess they would have restored the same registry. So, used the 'fix' option (twice) to repair the registry. Then rebooted and went into MyComputer with crossed fingers. But alas, the right click menu still does not appear!! Any other ideas??

John

So these R-Click functions were OK when you started from IE rather than starting in WE. Interesting.

I'll try and explain my thought processes here. When you open a windows application, the window that is displayed is (in VB terms) a form. Depending on how or where that "form" is opened-from certain options may be set with respect to that form as to how it responds to events acting on its various elements. One such event would be R-Click; others might be Click, AfterUpdate, OnMouseDown, etc. So it would appear that it is either the actual setting-up of WE that is corrupted or that it is the WE application itself which is corrupted; or both of course.

Since it appears that both WE and IE use the same "form" it is possible that by just replacing your current copy of explorer.exe with a fresh one extracted from your windows setup files might resolve this issue. I'm afraid it is more likely that the registry itself is corrupted (which is where the various options are more likely to have been stored than stored as resident code within the explorer "form" itself).

The fact that the hourglass comes on and stays, inclines me to think that this is corrupted encoding, with the code getting into some sort of loop that it can't get out of - and so the application just gets stuck.

Someone would need to know the exact registry keys to edit correctly to avoid a reinstall, if renewing your explorer.exe file did no good. I'm afraid I'm out of any fresh ideas.




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Take nice care of yourselves - Paul
"There are old pilots and bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots."

Anyone know if run sfc would pickup a corrupted explorer.exe?

No harm in trying sfc in any case.

Paul, might be on to something. I had been thinking of deleting explorer.exe and running a Win 98 soft reinstall and so after reading your post re `forms' I ran a `find explorer.*' command and this is what came up:-

EXPLORER C:\WINDOWS 1kb Windows Explorer Command 11/05/98 8.01
EXPLORER.EXE C:\WINDOWS 176kb Application 11/05/98 8.01
EXPLORER.OOO C:\WINDOWS\VCM 176kb 000 FILE 11/05/98 8.01
EXPLORER.EXE C:\WINDOWS\VCM 168kb Application 28/02/02 9.45

I then 2-clicked on each of these from the find window and each of them took me to WE. I tried a r-click on the same file in each but that infuriating perpetual hourglass appeared on each occasion

Is it safe for me to just delete these files and then do a soft Win 98 reinstall? Or perhaps just delete the /vcm files?

It may just be that one of these files is corrupted or the fact that there are several versions causes the r-click hang

I don't know what you mean in this post:-

`Anyone know if run sfc would pickup a corrupted explorer.exe?

No harm in trying sfc in any case.'

What is SFC?

Again many thanks for your interest

John

John,

In Win98, SFC (System File Checker) is a utility that will inspect many of your system files to see if they have been altered/changed/damaged, and then replace (a/c/d ones) with the original (from installation media/cab files, etc.). An overview of the command (from the microsoft KB) is at:

http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q185836

I belive that you can use the utility to replace your suspect files by starting the utility (you can type SFC from a command prompt, I think), choosing the option to extract a file from the system disk, choosing the file that you wish to replace (eg explorer.exe) and pointing the utility to your installation CD as the source for the replacement.

As for your list of files, the fact that there are files in the VCM (Version Conflict Manager) folder suggests (to me) that there is a version conflict between two versions of explorer. That's nothing I've ever dealt with, so I'll wait for someone else to confirm/suggest advice.

John

[This message has been edited by john5211 (edited 03-19-2002).]

I don't have any miracle cures for this one, but did stumble across a link I really wanted in the MS Knowledge Database. You might be able to extract explorer.exe from the cab files and replace it. How to Extract Original Cab Files (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q129605)

The only other thing I can think of is that a registry key has been corrupted or changed, or possibly a dll file has been installed by a program that overwrote an existing one and it's not cooperating. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the registry too attempt any suggestions...

Reinstalling Windows is always considered a last resort only with us, but keep in mind that it might turn out to be necessary AFTER we try everything else we can think of...

Ski You may turn out to be right in this case, but please recommend reinstalling Windows as a LAST RESORT ONLY. Overinstalling is almost never recommended at all, it usually brings existing problems along with it. (Installing Windows on top of itself.)

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If your nose runs and your feet smell...
You're built upside down!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.dreamwater.com/paleopete/computer.htm) has been moved, please update your bookmarks.

jhitches glad you have stuck this one out so far. I don't know what your explorer file is that has no extension. The .000 file would be the backup made when a newer version was installed. But the dates do not necessarily give the version see here (http://www.windows-help.net/windows98/start-1442.shtml); for that you need to R-click on the file (hehe if it will let you) and select properties or else click properties on the file menu; then open the version tab.

There may be another catch22 in that the "search for files" also uses the Explorer "form"!

I would love to know what path is used to get to the explorer application (and any switches used) when one clicks on the IE icon on the desktop. This is in fact classified as a system folder and is not a shortcut icon; but one can never see its contents. Does anyone have any info on this??

I also wonder what happened on 28/2 when your VM folder seems to have been created.


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Take nice care of yourselves - Paul
"There are old pilots and bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots."

1. A right click produces a "Context Menu".
2. The content of the Context Menu is decided by what it is you are right clicking upon. Your operating system looks in the registry to find what to put in the menu based on the "object" of your right-click.
3. If it cannot find the info it requires [in the Registry] it will be unable to make the menu, hence the hour glass [it's trying] but no result.
4. Eventually your screensaver kicks in as it normally would when there is no activity for the period you have specified in your configuration settings [control panel/display].
A. You need to restore a clean/working registry. Have you taken any [recent?] backups which do not include the problem or other equally bad/worse problems?
B. You could try to fix your Registry but that would require suitable knowledge and is dangerous. You could do more harm than good.
C. I don't know but I wonder if Re-installing your operating system would replace the missing info in the Registry.
D. You could rebuild your software system from scratch. That is re-format your "C" drive and re-install your operating system etc.

A suitable system of regular backup and the ability to restore [a clean backup] after reformat would eliminate this software problem [ and many if not all others]with ease.

Thanks Sylvander. Unfortunately I don't have a `clean' backup of the Registry - all that are available through scanreg /restore are recent and would include the problem. I have done several Win 98 soft reinstalls but these did not fix the problem either

When I eventually get this problem fixed have taken note of your tip re Registry backups. Thanks again

John

After Sylvander's post I had a search through my own (ME)Registry. There were 58 entries that included ContextMenu (mostly paths to ContextMenuHandlers but also to ExplorerContextMenu, TaskbarContextMenu and NoTrayContextMenu).

I couldn't decipher any of the system entries (which presumably would include the cut, copy, paste, openwith, sendto, etc.) but there were a number of entries relating to installed software, which create their own customised menu items on these R-Click or Shortcut or ContextMenus. Notably; encryption, compression and antivirus utilities and office applications.

If any of these are (or were) installed and were the original cause of the corruption it couldn't hurt to uninstall them and then reinstall them in the hope that this would allow correction of their own specific registry entries.

Ensure that no other applications are running at the time (especially any WindowsExplorer windows). Either use ctrl/alt/del and EndTask for all except Explorer and SysTray or run msconfig and uncheck "Load startup group items" under "SelectiveStartup" and reboot.

BTW, if you want to create a shortcut to IE and have it open in Explorer View. Then create a new shorcut to IE and edit its properties Target box to "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" -e

If that doesn't work you may need to use the DOS path C:\Progra~1\Intern~1\IEXPLORE.EXE -e

Then change its icon so that you recognise it as a diffent shortcut if you want to. Hope your having fun with all of this http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif







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Take nice care of yourselves - Paul
"There are old pilots and bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots."

A breakthrough at last - but now other problems!!

Ski originally suggested trying an IE uninstall but I could not do so at the time as in the Add/Remove IE (5.5) window I could only get 2 options - add a component or repair. The 3rd option - revert to the previous installation - was greyed out

I found `How to Uninstall Internet Explorer 5.5 (Q257234)' in the MS Knowledge Base but his was of no help but it did lead me to '(Q263470) How to manually uninstall Internet Explorer 5.5 from Windows 95/98'

Today I tried the latter following all the instructions carefully and eventually found myself with IE4. I then tried the r-click in WE in several places and to my amazement it worked!! So I thought the problem was solved and went ahead and upgraded IE4.0 to 5.5 to get me back to where I was before

But, but, but. After upgrading to IE5.5 again the r-click in WE stopped working again!!! So I had found that IE4 was OK but IE5.5 was not - even though I have been using it for about a year without this r-click problem

I uninstalled 5.5 again and was again taken back to 4.0. Hey presto, the r-click in WE worked again!

The trouble is I now keep getting script error messages (do you want to continue .....) and in any case I want to use IE5.5

So now the problem is how to get back to IE5.5 and preserve the present IE4.0 working state of the r-click in WE

Anyone have any ideas?

John

can you try IE6 ?




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sea1_69@hotmail.com

homepage (http://www.seanweb1.homestead.com/3.html)

I did have this at one time but then McAfee Antivirus did not cover it and so I reverted to 5.5 (quite some time ago)

John

Update. After my last post re IE6 and Mcafee I went ahead and upgraded IE4 to IE6 since I imagine by now McAfee have it covered

Bad news though - once IE6 was installed the r-click in WE would not work again!!

I then went ahead and removed it and am now back to IE4 again - with the r-click in WE back in working order once again. Still need help to be able to upgrade to IE5.5 or IE6 and have the r-click in WE working - and the script error messages banished!

John

Hmmmmmmm. I wasn't aware you had been to IE6 and back. IMHO upgrading to IE6 is fraught with problems. The newsgroups are peppered with them and there have been a number of PCG threads relating to this. Here are just some of the reported "bugs":-

I cannot load www.novell.com (http://www.novell.com) w/o getting errors.
I cannot use the back button to get to the previous web page.
I get a blank page when clicking on a link.
Incompatibilities with Acrobat Reader.
Incompatibilities with Norton Antivirus.
Incompatibilities with McAfee Antivirus
I cannot shut down without turning off computer.
Right clicking on a Link and then Open in New Window creates a blank page.
System freeze on "exploring" explorer.
View Source disappeared.
History corrupted and can't be viewed.
Red x boxes instead of Pictures..

The problem is that once having gone there, the system may be so corrupted that you can never get back to square one without getting to a ghosted copy of your drive or by a clean install.

One of common denominators is the installation of a number of incompatible .dll versions and what is often required is to get back to the one that was originally installed along with your OS.

It might be worth viewing this thread (http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/Forum15/HTML/000909.html) and trying to reinstate some originals one by one. I would definetly try to restore the URLMON.DLL Go to Start<>Run and type/enter REGSVR32 URLMON.DLL Another very simple fix that may be worth trying is to repair IE in SAFE MODE.

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Take nice care of yourselves - Paul
"There are old pilots and bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots."

Came across this thread and wanted to share that I, too, am having trouble with My Computer after having "upgraded" to IE6. My problem is that I can't get any Properties to display on any selected disk icons in My Computer. I can get Properties in the Control Panel/Device Driver and in Admin Tools/Disk Manager, but not in My Computer. I even installed a dual boot of Win2K(SP1/IE5)into a separate partition and got things to work as advertised, but then upgraded to SP2/IE6 and went right back to former problem. I had been under the impression that it was the SP2. This thread has been very informative!

Paul... your explanation of the relationship between WE and IE was VERY helpful! Bye the bye... as an experienced pilot, I believe in redundant systems. Noted that you recently acquired Partition Magic. I have used this for years and think it is the most useful Utility that I have. The latest version (7.0) is a great improvement over earlier releases. I think everyone should have this program.

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Senior citizen's toy
AMD1.4/RAID/Win2Kpro

Update! Found the source of my problem! Un-installed IIS and everything began to work as advertised! Now my properties display in My Computer, not to mention that my startup for my network connection dropped from 180 second delay to 45! One more tweak with my nic and I'm down to 2 sec!!! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

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Senior citizen's toy
AMD1.4/RAID/Win2Kpro

To all who have tried to help me with this problem - many thanks. Here is an update

Last Friday night I lost my cable connection and thus could not access the Net. A technician from my cable servide provider kindly spent 3 hours here on Saturday but could not fix it (even by installing a new USB Ethernet device) and finally advised me that a Windows reinstall was the only solution

Well, since I have 2 x 8G hard disks, each with several partitions created with Partition Magic (V3),I spent a few days ensuring that I had everything copied from the 1st disk to the 2nd disk (removable - but not regarded as such by my system) and then withdrew the 2nd disk

Thus I would have a 2nd chance to be able to retrieve anything I wanted if my reinstall went horribly wrong and screwed up part or all of my primary hard disk

Yseterday I went ahead with a Win 98 2nd Ed install but could not install as it kept saying my system already had an operating system (Win 98) on it even though I had formatted C. Eventually I reverted to reinstalling my original Win 98 instead - and it succeeeded. But, as I had previously copied the original C:\Windows directory to D in a directory called `C Windows Folders-Files' (so that I could later check any original file if necessary) the new installation picked up many of these files and now points to them! For instance in my new startup list there are items like `D:\C Windows Folder-Files\scanregw.exe /autorun'

No doubt the existence of this folder in D is why Win 98 2nd Ed would not instal as it would have been picking up these files too

I am pleased to report that the Win 98 reinstall solved my original `no right click menu' problem in WE - and it continued to work even after I had gone on and installed IE6! So at least we now know it was an unknown software problem (I suspect IE)

However, as the present new Win 98 reinstall is unsatisfactory due to it pointing to many of the D (old) files I will have to start again. This time I should be able to install the 2nd Ed as I will transfer the
`D:\C Windows Folders-Files' folder to a partition on my 2nd hard disk which I will then remove again to hopefully put it out of reach of the Win 98 2nd Ed install program! (I just hope that if the install goes OK that when I reinsert the 2nd HD the existence of these former Windows files will not screw everything up ................)

Regards to all
John