Can't click start button

Question

On Windows 8.1 sometimes I can't click the Windows button. Nothing happens. Does anyone know what causes this or why it happens? Last time this happened I was running Outlook, Firefox and Vmware.

I realize there aren't many details in this question but there just isn't that much to say. What would you like to know?

Pressing the key on the keyboard works. This doesn't happen very often, but has happened a couple times over the past few days. Once it starts happening, it doesn't go away on its own but after I restart the computer it is fine. No I'm not using some kind of patch to get the start menu back.

Solution

This used to happen occasionally on my laptop then I discovered this temporary solution. I didn't know (and still don't know) what caused it - I could leave the laptop which was working fine all alone for some time only to come back and have an unresponsive Start button.

After some time probably due to an update from Windows Update the problem went away.

1. Open Task Manager.

2. Find the process Windows Explorer and right-click, Restart or just highlight the process and click Restart.

It should work now. This also fixes problems like "Unable to Click Network button" and others since it's related to the same process.

Comments

[Kevin Versfeld]

Not very much information to help you with here.

[Ramhound]

Yeah; The reason you are getting downvotes is because the quality of this question is extremely and entirely not acceptable. Please provide more information. For instance if you press the Windows key does the start screen get displayed? Furthermore are you using a program to get the "start menu" back in 8.1. Except more from a 2 year Superuser veteran and nearly 2,500 reputation,

[fixer1234]

Is the Windows button the only thing that doesn't work or is the system generally hung? Any other symptoms? Does it eventually recover on its own, or do you just do without it for the session, or do you reboot and that fixes it? How frequent? If it is an unusual occurrence and you can't reproduce it, it will be tough to solve.

[Celeritas]

@fixer1234 it is an unusual occurrence so no it can't be easily reproduced

[Celeritas]

@Ramhound I updated the question to answer your questions. There isn't much to be said, I don't believe in putting filler just for the sake of talking.

[fixer1234]

When you have a sporadic problem like this and are unable to offer any diagnostic information and can't reproduce the problem, asking the question will get downvoted because there is no expectation that anyone can help. Except if by some stroke of luck, someone recognizes the symptom and knows a solution. Looks like you had luck in this case with Rsya Studios' answer.

[Celeritas]

@fixer1234 not sure I agree with you, just because a problem is sporadic doesn't mean it's an invalid problem, in fact that's probably the best time to seek help.

[fixer1234]

I was referring to behavior on this site. There is an expectation that if a problem is presented, it should be answerable. That usually means it is reproducible, can be diagnosed, etc.; people have a basis to help solve it. If it has none of the characteristics that make it answerable by a diagnostic process, it is just generic symptoms that could be anything and no way to solve it. The only source of a solution is sheer luck that the problem is unique in some way and someone recognizes it. It's a tradeoff: downvotes for an apparently bad question vs. a chance at a solution.

[fixer1234]

Clean boot can be really useful for problems caused by what's loaded during startup and that are immediately evident. It sounds like this occurs randomly during an occasional session and likely involves something started in the session. Even if the problem relates to something loaded during startup, it sounds too random for the clean boot approach to be efficient at identifying it. If you disable the "cause" and the problem doesn't recur, you don't know if its because you found the cause or it just didn't happen again yet.

[Admin]

AFAIK you can't hook into explorer.exe without killing it off first. Anything that's going to affect the Windows UI is going to have start up at boot time. When these issues happen sporadically, they can take a long time to diagnose.

[Crash893]

That did the trick for me but i dont see a restart option only end task and end task tree

[Rsya Studios]

@Crash893 see the screenshot I added.