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task bar and start screen do not accept mouse clicks

Anonymous
2015-11-07T04:03:56+00:00

Hello Community,

I have an ASUS S505CM laptop running windows 8.1 and I have the following symptoms:

  • When I start windows, I cannot left or right click on the start menu, taskbar, or desktop icons, but I can launch the start screen with the windows key.
  • When I launch the start screen I cannot click on any start screen icons.
  • If i search from the start screen by typing, I cannot click on the results; however I CAN highlight the result with the mouse pointer, I just cannot click it.
  • I can also use the arrow keys and the ENTER key to select and launch any item in the search results.
  • If a window is open (for example the task manager, launched by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ESC) I cannot click anywhere in the window or close/minimise the window
  • I CAN navigate said window using the keyboard (ALT to bring up menus, TAB and arrows to move about)
  • I CAN right click on the desktop to bring up the contextual menu
  • The problem persists in safe mode.
  • The problem persists with a different mouse (switched from MS wireless USB/keyboard combo to a wired standard MS 3 button mouse)

These things prevent the issue from occurring:

  • booting with no USB mouse attached. The laptop's touch pad functions with no problems. If I subsequently plug the USB mouse in, the problem will occur.
  • pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL fixes the issue at least temporarily

I have tried the following with no success

  • Booted in safe mode
  • reinstalled Intel drivers
  • reinstalled graphics chip drivers (Nvidia)
  • reinstalled touchpad and mouse drivers

All drivers were downloaded from the ASUS website and are correct for my laptop model and operating system.

I am using a Microsoft Sculpt ergonomic wireless mouse and keyboard combination, and the mouse I switched to for which the problem persisted was a "Microsoft basic optical mouse 1.0A"

If anyone can give insight as to what might be causing this I will be very grateful. Cheers.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Search, touch, and mouse

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Anonymous
2015-11-30T22:49:11+00:00

WORKAROUND FOUND: I have been able to narrow the issue down to my wireless mouse and have found what appears to be a workaround. I can reliably cause the issue to occur, complete with taskbar unresponsiveness by simply booting with the usb mouse/keyboard receiver plugged in and the mouse on. If I turn the mouse off or remove its batteries and then boot and log in, I can turn on the mouse after I'm logged in and the issue does not seem to occur. So to re-iterate, the bug is triggered by booting or logging in with the mouse switched on and the usb receiver plugged in.

I can also achieve this result by leaving the receiver unplugged for boot and login. Plugging it in after this seems to work, even with the mouse switched on. This seems to be in conflict with my initial observations so I'm a bit worried that it may not work always. Its possible that an earlier "fix" I applied has allowed this to work.

Because I was using a laptop that i took from home to work with me every day, I had to turn on and plug in my keyboard/mouse each day and it would seem that the order in which I did this changed which made the problem appear random to me.

I will only update this page if something I have said turns out to be inconsistent or incorrect. I hope Microsoft will use this info to fix this bug.

PREVIOUS Situation (chronologically 4th): I no longer have problems with the task bar, so one of the methods below appears to have worked for that problem. I still cannot click in "apps", nor can I click search results in the start screen. I am also having problems with the open source Image manipulation program "GIMP" where I cannot click on certain things, usually about 30 seconds into using it.

Once again I will update if the issue returns. I have left the information below so that others can see what I have tried and what the results were.

*THIRD TEMPORARY SOLUTION". Because this issue keeps coming and going seemingly at random, I am reluctant to say this is a permanent solution. Instead I will say that this action coincided with the problem going away immediately (no reboot required). I simply turned off bluetooth on my laptop;

SECOND TEMPORARY SOLUTION: So the problem returned again after the "solution" below, but I believe I may have solved it by the following process:

  1. if you cannot right-click on the taskbar, then press CTRL+ALT+DEL and click on task manager (I believe this works by restarting explorer)
  2. right-click on the taskbar and select properties
  3. go to the navigation tab
  4. uncheck "When I click in the upper left corner, switch between my recent apps"
  5. save and restart.

If the problem returns I will update this page. I got the above solution from deep in the comments of a question on a similar (but not exactly the same) issue people were also experiencing with a win 8.1 update. You can read the thread here: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8\_1-performance/cant-click-windows-icon-and-hot-corners-not/649e78a2-ff71-4bb6-a28b-7c0b6e0e6c22 

PREVIOUS TEMPORARY SOLUTION ONLY: I had been using a generic driver without incident for about a year because of issues I had with the Microsoft mouse and keyboard center. I have now installed the latest version of Microsoft mouse and keyboard center (which is a bundle of software including a driver) and this has prevented my current issue from recurring. Hopefully I do not run into the old problems again, but for now the issue is solved.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-11-11T07:16:14+00:00

    Thank you Jayant!

    I logged in with an existing alternative Microsoft account and the problem did not present. Then when I logged out and logged in to my usual account, the problem did not present for my normal account either. it seems to have fixed the issue.

    If the issue appears again I will update, but it looks good for now!

    Thanks again for your timely help!

    As a side note, I am interested to know why pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL solved the problem temporarily; are you able to shed any light on that?

    Cheers

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-12-10T22:55:21+00:00

    Hi Jayant,

    Can you please pass on the information from this thread to the developers for the microsoft sculpt ergonomic desktop?

    This appears to be a bug with the mouse. see my marked answer for full details. Please let me know when you have passed this on.

    Thanks!

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-11-11T21:42:14+00:00

    Sorry Jayant, I had to un-mark as an answer because the problem has persisted after a power cycle.

    Signing in with the alternative account prior to signing in with my primary account seems to fix the issue temporarily, however, the issue remains after a reboot.

    As this seems to be related to accounts somehow, I should also add that the oneDrive icon in windows explorer is displaying with Yellow Triangular exclamation symbol indicating something is wrong, but there is no clue in the context menu or elsewhere to indicate what this might me (as far as I can see).

    What's next?

    Cheers.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-11-07T16:00:43+00:00

    Hello,

    Thank you for visiting Microsoft Community and providing us with the detailed description about the issue.

    As per the description, I understand that you are experiencing issue with Taskbar and start screen do not accept mouse clicks on the system.

    I certainly understand your concern and will try my best to help you.

    I really appreciate all your efforts in trying to fix this issue.

    Since you have already tried almost all the troubleshooting steps, I would suggest you to try and recreate the issue in new user account and diagnose if that helps.

    I would suggest you to create a new user account and check if that helps.

    Create a user account

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-user-account#create-user-account=windows-8

    Security, privacy & accounts

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-privacy-accounts-help#security-privacy-accounts-help=windows-8&v0h=win8tab1&v1h=win8tab1&v2h=win7tab1&v3h=winvistatab1

    I hope this information is helpful.

    Please do let us know if you need any further assistance, we will be glad to assist you.

    Thank you.

    Jayant

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