Quick Launch shorcuts stop working on a regular basis

[JeePee]

Several times a day, all shortcuts in my quick launch toolbar stop working.
The toolbar is there, I see the icons, I can click on them and I actually see
that the shortcut button is 'pushed in' but then nothing happens. The program
is not started and there is no error.

The only way to get them to work again is to either restart my computer, or
in task manager » process to end a;; 'explorer' instances to then start a
new instance again from the task manager file » new task (run).

If this happens and I right click the taskbar » toolbars and disable the
quick launch bar, the shortcut buttons are gone, but the space for the
buttons remains there (unlike when the buttons work and I do this, then the
space used by quick launch is gone).

I have this now for several weeks, I can't pinpoint the moment on which it
stops working. There is nothing in the event log and I can't find any clue on
the internet.

 

[Blue Wolf]

I have been having the exact same problem JeePee and I have been trying every
approach possible to fix it with no luck. I have been searching the web for
any suggestions and today I came across your post. At least I have found
someone else that is having the same problem. My suspicions are that it has
something to do with the installation of Windows XP SP3 because it seems like
it started happening after I updated to SP3 that I noticed the problem. It is
EXTREMELY annoying and unproductive and I am tired of having to either kill
and relaunch explorer (which as it's own issues because this causes some of
the tray icons to disappear) or log out and back in. Hopefully, someone with
a solution will stumble on our posts and suggest a fix.

 

[JeePee]

Hi Blue Wolf,

On my pc the problem was not related to XP SP3, I only installed SP3 last
week which is a couple of weeks/months after this first started to happen.

But, on my pc the problem is gone. I have it on my work laptop and at work
they changed the network configuration to use a domain. So my pc's setup was
changed from using a workgroup to a domain. We used a wizard from
www.forensit.com to migrate my old user profile to the new one. Since then
the problem is gone.

Although my user profile has been migrated, it may be well possible that it
is related to your profile. I have had issue with that before. You can look
in the registry and see if the settings are right. See my post (url below)
from 7/18/2007 12:27 AM PST. Another option would be to test is by creating a
new user on your computer and see if it also happens with that one.

Good luck with this!

 

[Blue Wolf]

Thanks, JeePee. I did a cursory check and all the registry values look
correct. I will create another profile and see if the problem shows up. The
only issue is that it takes a while before the problem occurs, but I will see
what I can find out. I appreciate the recommendations. It's strange that it
doesn't show up immediately after I log in, but takes a while before the
malfunction manifests itself.

 

[Mathieu SOUPHY]

I'm experiencing the exact same problems, glad to find out I'm not
alone as I too have been searching for a solution for quite some time
now... it also kinda started to appear after I installed Windows XP
SP3.

The 3 PC's I have (home, work laptop, work desktop) all have XP3, but
I'm experiencing this problem only on my home pc and work laptop. The
difference in software with the work desktop is that the former 2 have
TuneUp Utilities 2008 installed. Maybe that could have anything to do
with it ?

It is indeed not easy to find the solution, as the problem occurs just
every once in a while (maybe 3 times per week or so), but when it
happens, it can happen like 3 times in a row, even after killing
explorer.exe and restarting it...

If this is a SP3 related issue, I surely do hope Microsoft is aware of
it and will fix it soon.

 

[Blue Wolf]

I am still having the problem and I have tried several different suggested
solutions and nothing seems to work. Still no progress here in solving the
problem and it DID show up under a second profile. Yesterday, the problem
started as soon as I logged on, which was a first. Most of the time, it will
be minutes or hours after I log in before it starts, but it always eventually
shows up. VERY frustrating. A log out and log back in fixes it which is how I
am getting by for now.

 

[Blue Wolf]

Just an update. I am still having the same problems and I have yet to find a
solution. I am still not even sure what is causing the problem, but I am
fairly certain it was created by something I installed or updated and I am
not yet convinced it wasn't XP SP3. If anyone finds a solution to this
problem and comes across this thread, PLEASE post a solution. It is very
annoying to constantly have to log out and log back in.

 

[Letura]

I am having the exact same problem and Im running XP with SP2. So, it would
suggest it is not related to the service pack?

You maybe interested to know that I can recall when my problem started. It
was directly after installing/upgrading to Window Media Player 10. I had
since uninstalled this version which revert the version back to Window Media
Player 9 but the problem persisted. At first, it seemed that the problem
occurred while I was running Window Media Player (ver 9), although randomly.
However, lately it has been occuring even when I am not running Window Media
Player.

I hope this will help. I am also yet to find a solution.

 

[Blue Wolf]

Hmmm. That would kind of rule of XP3. I am using Windows media player 11 and
I still have the problem.The interesting thing is that I built a new test
installation on a separate disk and the exact same problem showed up. I still
haven't figured out any solution, however.

 

[vortex]

Just found this post! I've been having the same problems for about two weeks.
I don't have SP3 installed and don't remember installing anything new
recently. I've had WMP 11 installed for some time so it's unlikely to be
causing the problem. Just in case it's significant, I use NOD 32 anti-virus
and CounterSpy anti-adware. When my quick launch bar stops working, sometimes
the icons are still there and other times they disappear and leave blank
buttons. Very frustrating. I have found a work-around using a free program
called FreeLaunchBar which replaces the quick launch bar and seems to keep
working when all else fails. I would really like to know what's causing the
problem.

 

[Blue Wolf]

Hi vortex.

Welcome to the quicklaunch-toolbar-won't-work-anymore club. I now have the
problem on 2 XP Pro systems, including one that I rebuilt. The only thing I
have found I can do to fix it is kill explorer and relaunch it or log out and
log back in (reboot if you are not using multiple accounts). I am using
ZoneAlarm as my firewall and anti virus, so it doesn't sound like we have
that in common. I also have WMP 11 so we do have that in common. I also have
iTunes, Real Player, and Rhapsody installed.

The weird thing is that I never know when it's going to happen. It can
happen minutes after I log in or hours. It's VERY frustrating, but I don't
know what to do about. Some people that don't have SP3 installed are having
the problem so it doesn't look like that's the candidate. Maybe if our ranks
grow to several thousand, someone at Microsoft will actually read this thread
and look into the problem. It's sure been beyond my ability to debug so far.

Maybe we should all start sharing notes on what utilities we have installed
to see if there is something we all have in common. Here are the utilities
that I use:

Webshots
Diskeeper
OneNote (from Office 2007 which creates a tray icon)
Hypersnap
Clipmate
Filebox
Roboform
Tivo (server and desktop)
Retrospect (which creates a tray icon)

I also have activesync installed for my PDA (this creates a tray icon) and I
have nvdia display drivers and tools installed which creates a tray icon for
access to nvdia settings.

If we find some commonality we can start comparing notes on versions. It
sure seems like a conflict of some kind.