I have an old Dell 4300S desktop. It's running WIN XP Home. For the last week I've noticed that it hasn't been quite itself. I've checked for viruses and spyware, run defrag and disk cleaner.

Today, when I went to turn it on, it froze at my desktop. The mouse has been kind of screwy too, so I took out the ball and cleaned it and now only the right button works for choosing buttons. The kicker is that I can click on buttons, and nothing happens until I hit enter. But wait. That doesn't mean that my programs are all working, they're not.

Even from the sign in screen, I have to right click on my name and then hit enter for it to open to my desktop. To open the start file, I have to right click on it and choose Explore.

For example, I've got Uniblue"s RegistryBooster installed. To get to it, I click on start, click on Explore, find Uniblue, click on that, choose Expand, choose RegistryBooster, choose open and then it doesn't do anything. And remember I'm right clicking through all this.

I use AVG anti-virus and it runs on start-up. It's showing changes to several .dll files but doesn't list any threats.

No, I don't have a back-up disk (slap!, slap!). Thanks for any suggestions you can give me to get this thing running again.

Daugust

First try a new mouse. You're due for an upgrade anyway. Don't worry about that ball any more, you can get an optical mouse for about $5

Newegg.com - $0 - $10, Mouse, Input Devices, Computer Hardware

Did it lock up or were you just not able to click on anything. In the future you can chck this by trying a key, caps lock (light should turn off or on) or Windows key (next to space) should open the start menu.

If you have been having problems, did you notice them soon after a software install or system update?

Thanks SM!!

I love this site. You all are so helpful, AND, you're always right!!!

It was the mouse. Borrowed one from my sister to troubleshoot and sure enough, everything worked.

Thanks!