PLEASE HELP, this is driving me crazy. Today when I booted up my computer and opened up Explorer, I tried to right-click on a file to see its properties. However, the context menu never popped up; my hourglass cursor just kept turning. After a few minutes I had no choice but to force-terminate explorer.exe using the Task Manager. After re-starting explorer, I tried highlighting a file and then clicking on the File menu. Same results. This is the first major issue I've had with my otherwise smooth-running, 6-month-old computer. Now, I doubt anybody can pinpoint what's causing this, but does anybody know where in the registry I can change what's displayed in the right-click/File context menus? I know that there are programs that customize my menu by putting new commands in there, and I'm hoping to be able to find the culprit by disabling the commands. I didn't install any new programs, though. What I did do before the problem came up was allow the Windows Updater to install the updates it downloaded. That's the only system change which has occurred. Please advise, thank you thank you!!!

I've gathered some more (and worse) details about my system. It appears that I can't do ANYTHING in Windows Explorer. Here are some of the things that have led to stalls: deleting a file to the recycle bin, emptying the recycle bin, trying to launch Explorer with Windows Key + E, clicking on the Properties toolbar button for a highlighted file, and cutting/copying files. That's what I've tried so far. When I try to shut down, the programs that Windows waits for (the ones I have to press "End Now" on) are ctfmon.exe and explorer.exe (in that order). Once, out of the blue, I got a Blue Screen immediately after entering my password to log in (this is right after a restart). It just happened once, though. I don't believe I've contracted a virus because I run VirusScan and Outlook XP (not Express), and I never ran attachments. I've been very careful using my computer, and I've never suffered any problems with it before. It's a 1.4 GHz AMD with 512 MB RAM, so it's rather new. PLEASE HELP, THANKS!!!

re-install xp over itself that should clean up most if not all of your probs u won't lose any of your files

You may want to try uninstalling one or more of the updates you downloaded. That would be my first step since all this started after that process.

Actually I had this exact problem and it also drove me nuts. I had upgraded my Windows 98 machine to XP and couldn't right click at all. For some reason, this only happened when I used an old account from 98 though. So, I made a new account with XP, transfered all of my old files to that account, and deleted the old account. Haven't had any problems with it ever since. Good luck.

Since the only account I use/have enabled on my system is the Administrator, I never tried doing any of this under different accounts. After reading the last post, I enabled the Guest account, and found that everything worked fine under that. I've created a new user belonging to the Administrators group, and for now (and probably in the future, since it's good practice), I'm doing all my work under that. Also, my System Restore feature only had a single restore point, and it was created last night. (D'oh!) Oh, well. Looks like I have no choice but to run a Repair Installation. I'm starting a new post to ask about some details regarding Repair Installations. Thanks for all your help!

Chances are it is the video driver.