I can't click anything on my desktop

Question

_{Tuesday, August 7, 2012 8:24 AM}

I have a new HP laptop with Windows 7. After a little while of working I find that I can't click anything on my desktop any more. I have to go to Start-Computer-desktop in order to activate anything that is on my desktop. I am not sure what caused it but when I just start my computer I can click the icons on my desktop normally. It stops allowing me to click on icons after I am on my computer for a short time. Is there a fix out there that I should know about?

All replies (15)

_{Wednesday, August 8, 2012 11:41 AM ✅Answered | 8 votes}

Hi,

Do you make any changes in you computer before this issue happened? In genera, you can try my following suggestions:

Hit ctrl+shift+escape to open Task Manager. On the processes tab, locate

explorer.exe and select it, then click 'end process'. This should clear the

desktop save the background. Now move to the applications tab and click on

'new task'. Type in explorer.exe and click ok to reload the desktop. Try

clicking on some icons, does it work now? If not, please download MSE to scan your system. I suppose this issue may be due to virus.

Also you can try the Clean boot to check if the problem persist.

Hopes it can help you.

Best Regards.

_{Monday, October 28, 2013 7:19 PM}

Thank you soooooo much, I had the same problem and you're suggestion worked in an instant!

_{Thursday, December 12, 2013 8:22 PM}

I agree- this technique is the BEST. It works first time garunteed

_{Friday, December 20, 2013 9:10 PM}

Ending the process and restarting it like you said worked perfectly for me. Thanks!

_{Thursday, May 1, 2014 12:10 PM}

its working thanks :)

_{Sunday, June 28, 2015 1:13 AM}

Thanks so much for this!

I came downstairs to find my toddler with my desktop mouse in her hand, and a right click menu open on the computer.  I couldn't click on anything except the desktop icons, not application windows, not the start menu etc.

I rebooted to the same issue.

Then can across this post, ended explorer.exe manually, and restarted manually.  Back to normal.

Thanks for posting the information.

_{Friday, July 10, 2015 6:02 PM}

Thanks!

_{Thursday, November 24, 2016 3:23 AM}

I did this and now my desktop is completely black and then I ran it again and it just shows the bottom bar but it wont let me click any of it.

_{Sunday, March 11, 2018 4:35 AM}

I also have the problem of not clicking anything either and there is a bar in the middle of my screen that said virus protection that can’t go away. I don’t understand what you said so could you please help me? I can’t even get into my setting to reset my pc. Nor can I download any of those things you said.

_{Friday, October 26, 2018 6:04 PM}

I’ve been in class for two hours trying this..

_{Monday, February 4, 2019 10:18 PM}

Hey same thing happened to me did you ever get it to work if so please tell me I don’t know what to do

_{Monday, February 4, 2019 10:19 PM}

Same thing happened to me did u get it to work if so please tell me thanks

_{Wednesday, August 7, 2019 1:38 PM}

Thank you so much for this. It worked a treat for me. :)

_{Monday, September 23, 2019 9:35 PM}

I can’t do that without clicking, that was my problem in the first place

_{Monday, October 28, 2019 3:46 AM}

If you link your file with OneDrive, you have to sign in first. If you do not sign in, you can't click desktop icon with some files. I hve those kinds of experience.