Get rid of dead floating explorer context menu

Question

At some point I've right clicked in Explorer to open a file in Notepad++ and the context menu is left floating around on my screen.

• I've killed off both Explorer and Notepadd++ but the context menu remains.
• I've tried to drop the window identification target from Process Explorer on to it but Process Explorer doesn't seem to see it.

Its really annoying because I don't want to reboot at the moment and its hovering right over everything! Does anyone know how to kill these things off without a reboot?

Thanks!

Solution 1

Minimise all apps, then try the following:

• Change your screen resolution and then change it back.

• Run a full-screen app and then close it.

• Use your monitor's auto-adjust option if it has one.

Solution 2

I press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to bring up Task manager, then find dwm.exe in the processes and kill the process. In a second, the explorer interface comes back and the dead item is gone.

Comments

[Admin]

It only happens very rarely but now that I think about it, it does seem to be Notepad++ specific.

[Gshock]

Nice thinking, changing the screen resolution fixed it!

[Ian]

Unfortunately this only seems to work 3/4 times. Then dwm stops appearing