My computer is having a problem that is becoming more frequent. Sometimes when I click something to open it, e-mail, website window, etc. it won't do anything. I end up having to click alt control delete. I have tried clearing my cookie/browsing history and tempory files.

Is there anything I can try to fix this? Thanks.

could you try right-clicking on the item and click on the Open on the context menu and see what happens?


it wouldn't be a bad idea to run a virus scan and a spyware scan just to see if it finds anything.

You might want to consider using another browser. If you're using Internet Explorer, that always seems to be a slow browser to me.

For a long time I used Mozilla Firefox... that seems to work a lot faster than IE... but Mozilla had a couple of problems that caused me to try Google Chrome, and for me, Google Chrome works the best. It's faster than either of the other two, and it doesn't seem to freeze/lock up either.

If I were to recommend one of these, I'd say start with Google Chrome. You can import your favorites/bookmarks easily, so you won't lose them.

Don't forget some of the other basics -- like defragmenting and freeing space on your hard disk, which can be accessed from your Control Panel under "Performance and Maintenance." Also you can combat spyware as robyrob suggested -- I use Ad-Aware SE Personal.

I also use XP-Tuner Pro (registry cleaner and file cleaner). These might help with responsiveness issues.

could you try right-clicking on the item and click on the Open on the context menu and see what happens?

it wouldn't be a bad idea to run a virus scan and a spyware scan just to see if it finds anything.

Thanks.
When it does that I can't right click either.

I have Windows Vista.

My Norton software indicated it needed a "tuneup". It recently appeared to be up to date. I clicked on fix. It completed it. It listed Windows temporary files and IE temporary files complete.

I thought that under the control panel, internet options, under clear browsing history which includes temporary files, cookies, etc. that it would all be deleted. Does that not include Windows and IE for some reason?

that should delete your IE cache, but nothing else - CCleaner (http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download)is a free program that will clean out all of your temp files safely.

I think you have something running in the background that is causing the problem, whether it is actually spyware or just something that is not behaving is harder to say.

after you have scanned for spyware with Malwarebytes (http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free/)or SuperAntispyware (http://www.superantispyware.com/download.html)(free edition) you may want to run and post a HijackThis (http://www.filehippo.com/download_hijackthis/)log.