Bizarre problem

[sm625]

Wow this is a strange one. Here are the symptoms:

The computer appears to boot normally. The windows 7 desktop and all its icons appear as they should. The taskbar looks normal.

Here is what does not work:

I cannot right click on the desktop to bring up the context menu that normally appears.

I cannot left click on a desktop icon. The icon simply refuses to open or even highlight.

I can open the start menu, which proves left clicking does work, but then I cannot open anything that is in the start menu. I can however navigate start menu subfolders. 😕

This machine has a corporate antivirus and firewall and is fully updated.

Rgiht clicking does do something, because I can see the cursor change briefly every time I right click something on the start menu. But no context menus appear. Also, when I right click on windows explorer pinned to the taskbar, it brings up the expected context menu (a list of pinned folders). I can open one of these pinned folders, but nothing comes up on the screen.

 

[ViRGE]

When in doubt, wipe it out. In this case $5 says it's been TDSS'd.

 

[sm625]

It's a gigabyte motherboard. The problem is intermittent so it eventually booted normally. I uninstalled easytune and greenearth (or earthgreen or gigagreen or whatever it is called). Cannot get the problem to come back.

 

[cheez]

Sounds like it's locked out for security policies for the domain. Is this a computer at work? Log on as administrator or local admin account.

😉

 

[sze5003]

Or someone replaced your actual desktop background with a print screen of what you have on your desktop and then put your icons and stuff somewhere else or hid them.