Can't click on anything. What?

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Jayce

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My ex's sister called me last night (ex gf and sister are still friends of mine, just to clear that up) and sad she has a computer issue. She said she is unable to do anything on her desktop. She can't click on anything. It's just dead. The only thing she can do is alt/ctrl/del.

About a week ago one of my instructors was talking about this screenshot thing you can do to a computer. He said he did it to his buddy as a joke. It takes a screenshot of your desktop and sits completely overtop of it, so even though you see your folders and your start menu, in reality it's just a picture.

Her laptop stays at home. Nobody touches it but her. What could of went wrong? My phone battery was at 3% and buzzing at me last night so I told her I'd come down tonight and couldn't talk anymore on the phone.
 
The touchmouse or an external? If external is it a USB mouse or PS/2? I am guessing she doesn't have a clue how to just use the keyboard to do everything. The mouse has spoiled us.
 
It's a laptop, and I'm pretty sure she's just using the touchpad. The last time I was down there and was in her room was back in the summer, and she didn't have an external mouse then.

Maybe I'll stop by home and grab my mouse with the ps2-to-usb adapter and try it with her computer and see what happens.

But my cell battery was at 3% and buzzing like crazy when I was talking to her, so I couldn't get a lot of details. But it was strange, she said she can use her anti virus and anti spyware programs but NOTHING else works. So I wonder how she did that, yet couldn't click on anything else.

I'll obviously check hardware, but what if that isn't it? What other options do I have to fix this problem if it's not just a mouse problem? I just want to go down with some ideas under my belt just in case the mouse isn't the problem.
 
If her touchmouse has died, she can try a USB mouse. I hate the touchpad anyway. Sounds like there is much more to the story though. Or maybe she just needed an excuse to get you over there...
:wooha:
 
Yeah there is more to the story.

I went over there and everything seemed fine. She said oh no, double click my computer.

The problem is this. The computer boots up just fine. You see the desktop yadda yadda. If she tries to open something, double click a folder or something on her desktop, it won't open. You see the hour glass for a second and it'll disappear, yet nothing ever happens.

In task manager under processes, I tried clicking IE like 9 times, and all 9 processes showed up. I never got IE to open though.

If I restart the computer, the second before the screen shuts down I see everything I've been trying to open.

When I boot up the computer, if I REALLY QUICKLY double click my computer, sometimes it'll open. But after 5-10 seconds of it showing the desktop, all chances are gone and it'll lag.

She hasn't defragged in 3 years. We did a defrag tonight. She did a full virus scan and spyware scan. All clean.

We tried doing a goback... we tried 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, 4, 5, etc. Nothing worked. The only goback (system recovery) that worked was a week ago, and that yielded no difference.

One thing I forgot to do was trying to do a goback after the defrag. Unfortunately, I'm home, and it's late, so I'll wait till tomorrow to suggest that to her. But is it possible that the failed gobacks we tried failed because of the defrag? Maybe the defrag helped and the gobacks will work now?
 
I dont think the defrag will change the "goback" in any way. You can try running hijack this and post the log in the appropiate thread, but if it were my system, I would format/reinstall.
 
I warned her of that, so she's backing up her pictures tonight by rebooting and QUICKLY opening my computer and my documents. So that way she can drag the picture folder from my documents to the jumpdrive icon in my computer. Then, we'll probably reinstall.

Sucks though, would of been nice to salvage this problem and avoid that.
 
Jayce said:
I warned her of that, so she's backing up her pictures tonight by rebooting and QUICKLY opening my computer and my documents. So that way she can drag the picture folder from my documents to the jumpdrive icon in my computer. Then, we'll probably reinstall.

Sucks though, would of been nice to salvage this problem and avoid that.

Why race and click quickly? Why bother? You have a Ubuntu disc, use it!
 
Jayce said:
I warned her of that, so she's backing up her pictures tonight by rebooting and QUICKLY opening my computer and my documents. So that way she can drag the picture folder from my documents to the jumpdrive icon in my computer. Then, we'll probably reinstall.

Sucks though, would of been nice to salvage this problem and avoid that.

My advice is usually the same.....if you are having problems like this, even if it was salvaged, it would not be running at 100%....always better to start over.
 
The General said:
Why race and click quickly? Why bother? You have a Ubuntu disc, use it!

You misunderstood I believe. I was referring to when she boots up. You see, within the first five seconds of the computer booting up, whatever folders she double clicks they actually open. She is unable to open anything else after that time. So I suggested to her, REAL quickly open up my computer and my documents the nanosecond you see your desktop. That way, they open. With those 2 windows open, she has the ability to drag her pictures from the my documents folder and toss them onto the jumpdrive icon you see in the my computer window.
 
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