Right click does not work when trying to create shortcut on desktop

Making a blank shortcut in a folder or desktop fails to progress however creating a shortcut for a highlighted file works.
I am running Vista home premium SP2 on Acer Laptop 5920
Any clues welcomed

Thanks

So you are saying you can't right click on the desktop where there is no icon, but when you right click ONTO an icon (To make a shortcut, copy, rename, properties etc.) that works fine?

Trying to understand the issue better..

right click create shortcut added detail

Hi ComputerGuy55
You are just about right.
Right click on create shortcut when over blank space does zilch - it used to work fine and bring up text window etc. now ... click ignored.

Tricsim,

You can download and try this program:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Disable program Shell Extentions 1 by 1 and test if the right clicking feature returns to blank spaces..

how ever, if you disable all of these Shell Extentions and none seem to fix it I will have to research his more..

I'm not 100% sure of what I say here, since it's been a long time since I've run with Windows Vista, but isn't there some sort of "locking the desktop" feature? And if by chance that feature was accidentally chosen, wouldn't that now bar any sort of new icon or shortcut creation? If there is a "lock the desktop" option, maybe the path of least resistance here would be to see if that option is in play, un-select it and things should return to normal!

Just a thought!

Still trying to make "blank" shortcut

Hi Computerguy55
Thanks for the suggestion, I tried the program and went through a large number of the 366 extensions but only found one that seemed do anything

The icon was IE and description was "Inernet browser" and after disabling when I tried new shortcut it displayed two message boxes
One was titled " rundll.exe" that basically said cannot access ... path,file etc

.When OK pressed second message was "Unable to create file "new shortcut.lnk
file system error (16389)

As I don't use IE I thought this may be related so I installed the lates IE9 and no change.

It was odd that the extension was called "internet explorer" when it was nothing to do with net

So still searching

IE programs may run in the background to make the loading of certain items (maybe addons or just some features of IE) so that when you actually run the program it loads faster.. This is a hassle as it takes up memory and CPU usage, and can cause problems with other programs..

I would suggets maybe doing a System Restore to before you were having this problem.. Did the problem start to occur after installing IE9??

I have decided to live with the loss

The bottom line now is I don't have any restore files! Where they have gone I don't know.

The problem started long before I tried to fix by installing IE9.

The loss of restore point I hope was not due to some malware.
Thanks for your suggestions and help.