Good afternoon,

I have a strange and frustrating problem with the start menu on a Windows XP Home Edition SP2 Compaq Presario laptop.

If you click 'Start' as normal and double click on any applications as normal then they do not open. I have to right click the application and select 'Open' in order for the application to open.

But to confuse the issue further the Control Panel opens as normal with a double click. So it appears to be shortcuts to .exe files that do not open after they have been double-clicked.

Has anyone any ideas what could be causing this irritation??

Many thanks for your help in advance.

Paul.

Get Hijack This and post in the Spyware and Nasties forum =)

dose it happen to exe shortcuts on the desktop also ,if so try double clicking with the right button ,might be that you mouse settings are lefthanded .if so they can be change in the controle panell

Thank you both for your replies.

Yes it is the same with exe shortcuts on the desktop but the mouse it set to the normal left hand button.

My Computer on the desktop opens as normal with a left hand double click.

I have run scans and fixes using McAfee VScan 8, Ewido and Ad-aware. I tried running SmitRemfix but for some reason it would not recognise batch files correctly. Anyway none of these have made any difference.

I have now run HikackThis and I will post it in the relavant forum.