I was innocently going through the paces on my Windows 2000 machine, when suddenly it wouldn't allow me to open my desktop folders. I'd been using the computer to play music through iTunes for about three hours before it acted up.
If I move the cursor on top of any icon on my desktop it will not open or move. Rebooting hard and hot don't change it. Trying to get into files through the task bar doesn't work. I can start Word and Word can see my files and folders, but can't manipulate or transfer them.

bump

okay......
thank you for the message from OBVIOUS-land! If you bothered to READ my message you'd have avoided yourself one useless response, but thank you for going through the motions.

try rebooting.

Some things to try.

1 Boot into safe mode; see if the problem still exists.

2 Spyware / adware check. Have you run a spyware checker and or anti-virus?

3 After the above, run hijack this and post a log.

I'm marking this 'solved' because the problem was a stuck 'esc' key. Thanks to everybody except 'da island boy' who needs to learn to read.

thanks crj i'll get on it. I've run the local virus checker which came up negative and I'm not suffering from pop ups and have no anti-spy software currently. I've never run hijack this so I'll have to find it and learn how to use it.