Repost: Odd Start menu problem

[Trent SC]

I've been seeing an occasional oddity with My XP Pro (SP2 & all the fixes)
installation.

When I click on the Start menu, the left column (recent & pinned programs)
are completely black, and clicking on any of the entries in the right column
results in opening the folder rather than opening the program. This is
fixed by a restart, but I'd be interested to know if this is a known issue
and whether there's a fix.

when I do restart, my taskbar loses the Quick Launch and Address Toolbars...

I've run AVG, AdAware and Spybot S&D and it's come up blank.

TIA

 

[Guest]

I too have this exact problem and I can't tell exactly when it happens. I
could be running for hours before it changes on me.

One thing I have found, I updated the JAVA runtime. Going from 5.0 update 10
to 5.0 update 11 now gives me a WHITE startmenu with the same problems.

 

[Nightowl]

One thing I have found, I updated the JAVA runtime. Going from 5.0 update 10
to 5.0 update 11 now gives me a WHITE startmenu with the same problems.

Don't know if this applies to either of you, but some people have blamed
Logitech Quickcam drivers for this problem:
http://blogs.vertigosoftware.com/steventap/archive/2005/06.aspx

Others have apparently fixed it by leaving the drivers but uninstalling
the software:
http://www.compatdb.org/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/170075/page/1

 

[Guest]

I've read the posts I found online about the Logitech quickcam drivers.
Unfortunately, I don't have a Logitech camera or their drivers installed.
So far I've gotten 3 odd symptoms with the start menu.

Mostly it is black and clicking on any of the entries in the right column
opens the folder and clicking All Programs does nothing. Upon restart, the
quick launch is gone.

The second and third symptoms are the same as above but the start menu is
either WHITE or I do actually see the left column.

I've experienced this right after using IE6(can't remember what site) but as
it was changing pages I passed the cursor over the browser window and I saw
briefly a trial of black boxes over the white web page background where the
mouse had travelled over.

I'm trying to see if any ActiveX or BHO's might be causing it.

 

[Elmo]

I've read the posts I found online about the Logitech quickcam drivers.
Unfortunately, I don't have a Logitech camera or their drivers installed.
So far I've gotten 3 odd symptoms with the start menu.

Mostly it is black and clicking on any of the entries in the right column
opens the folder and clicking All Programs does nothing. Upon restart, the
quick launch is gone.

The second and third symptoms are the same as above but the start menu is
either WHITE or I do actually see the left column.

I've experienced this right after using IE6(can't remember what site) but as
it was changing pages I passed the cursor over the browser window and I saw
briefly a trial of black boxes over the white web page background where the
mouse had travelled over.

I'm trying to see if any ActiveX or BHO's might be causing it.

Here are a few things to try:

Run DXDiag and see if it complains of uncertified drivers; try lowering
graphics hardware acceleration, etc.. Also look at the computer
manufacturer site and the graphics card manufacturer site for different
drivers.

Several dialog boxes are blank:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/831430

Click Start, Run and type:

regsvr32 jscript.dll

 

[Guest]

Just an update,

The most recent time this happened, I hit Ctrl-Alt-del and ran Task Manager.
I quit Explorer. Once Explorer quit I launched a new copy of it with Task
Manager and noted that the symptoms were gone. Mind you, half of my Tray
icons were missing at that point because I shut explorer down.

It kind of makes me wonder what is happening.
I wish there was a log detailed enough to pin it down.

 

[Guest]

Hi, I've done something that has so far been proving successful for me.
I've uninstalled the Sun Java runtime software from my system completely.
I've installed the MSJava runtime instead. I cannot remember where I found
the download package online but since then I have not had these symptoms. My
web pages seem to load ok too.

 

[Guest]

Well, this fix I just wrote about didn't seem to help after all. It happened
way less but nothing conclusive still.

This morning I decided to adjust the number of recently used programs down
to 5 from 8 and in the process of doing that my symptoms appeared again.

So far I've seen logical suggestions like updating my video drivers but it
is kind of hard since Nvidia hasn't updated their XP drivers since November.
I don't have any logitech drivers installed on my system.(don't own their
products).
I want to know what sort of things on a computer can affect the start menu
in this way. A software programmer should be able to answer this. Why doesn't
both menus go black rather than just the left column? And how does this also
affect the quick launch bar? The problems seem related to Explorer or
something that is hooked in with Explorer in some way since ending the
Explorer task and restarting it solves this problem.

I'm just waiting for another reason on my computer to reload everything but
it hasn't come to it yet.