Incomplete Boot?

XP Home. Machine appears to boot OK but when a desktop icon is double left clicked instead of the associated programme launching its properties box is displayed. If you right click on the icon and hit open the relevant programme launches. This used to only happen very occasionally but now it happens nearly every boot and can take over ten attempts before doble left clicking launches the application. It is very annoying and am concerned it may be a symptom of something more serious. Virus, spyware, malware, adware scans all clean - different mouse tried. Any ideas anyone? Thanks.

 

Hi Steve, that was my first thought so have been leaving machine for over five minutes but maybe not quite ten. Have run registry mechanic and ccleaner to try and make sure the registry is in reasonable shape and also have run bootvis and longest boot according to this was 120 seconds (quickest ever was 79 seconds some time ago before some extra programmes were loaded including Acrobat 7 pro which seemed to do most of the damage to the boot time). No problems with shutdown so at a bit of a loss. Wouldn't be too concerned if it wasn't getting worse.

 

Thanks for your brain time Steve.

 

I don't really know either. My first suggestion would be to try a different mouse. Perhaps your's has a problem of some sort.

 

If I may make a suggestion?

The poster has already tried two mice, so it might be more productive to look at the context menu handlers.

Strange things happen if you have software that installs poorly written context menu handlers, such as the user is experiencing. MS-MVP Ramesh Srinivasan in an article: Right-click is slow or weird behavior caused by context menu handlers discusses ways to diagnose and cure the issue of a poorly acting context menu handler: http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/slowrightclick.htm

 

Update. Fairly positive it is not a mouse problem. Took over 2 hours to get a good boot yesterday so decided to bite the bullet and reload XP. After I did this I had network problems and all the install cds were with my son 200 miles away so used Drive Image to restore the complete C drive although the system still had the same problem when I made the original backup. Once restored the system takes ages to completely boot, 6 to 7 minutes, but once its up all icons double click fine. Have rebooted five times so far without repeat of the problem. Have minimum running at startup so now just to find out why the boot is so slow, used to boot in anything between 74 and 121 seconds according to SpeedupmyPC. I am beginning to think that it may be one of those things that just has to be put down to the wonders of XP.
Thanks for all your help and suggestions, guys.