Blank menu bar in Windows Explorer and blank performance tab

I've seen this thread before, but the problem is definitely very different. To answer your question, I haven't tried that fix, but if you look at my screenshots, you'll see that it's not even remotely related to my problem. Thanks for the help.

Hope you sort it out. While I would have done that .reg first you seem to want to dismiss the usual. As such I wish you well.
Bob

There is nothing wrong with the Task Manager itself. It appears to be just one of the multiple manifestations of the main problem.

Maybe my problem description wasn't detailed enough. The blank Performance tab problem you can see in the screenshot only happens when the main problem occurs, i.e. when the number of allowed windows becomes "limited". The rest of the time, all the tabs of the task manager are normal. The problem described in that thread you mentionned is different in that it is only that the user name is missing. In my case, the whole tab simply doesn't load at all, graphically at least.

The performance tab in the task manager being blank was just an example. It sometimes happens with other tabs in various Windows XP dialog boxes, which appears to be consistent with the fact that there seems to be only a limited amount of windows/tabs/processed allowed.

And finally, like I said, it only occurs after a few days without rebooting, the rest of the time the task manager tabs and any other tab are perfectly fine. So it seems unlikely to be caused by corruption in the task manager registry key.

Considering all this, I'm pretty much 100% confident that this fix will be useless, and this is why I dimissed it.

However, I must admit that ruling this out officially cannot be a bad thing. I'll give it a try as soon as the user goes home, and post the results here.

Thank you.

to shut down the laptop every night. It saves the environment, saves money on the electricity bill and solves this error. Nothing wrong with it, I'd say.

Kees

Totally agree but this is in an enterprise environment, and unfortunately all the workstations must be available for various maintenance and tests during the night. Also, several employees work remotely from home during evenings and weekends.

Microsoft has support just for Enterprise operations. Your issue is one I have seen but we often just re-image the workstation since troubleshooting is too costly.
Bob

I used the word enterprise but basically I only meant that this is in a company office, not a single user at home. I've only been working here for a few weeks, but I haven't heard about an "Enterprise" support from Microsoft. Is this support you need to pay for? We don't have volume licensing here, just individual Windows licenses since this is not a very big company.

Can you give me more info ?

Sorry but Enterprise means to me you have the usual support lines in place. It appears you are not such and will have to dig in and get help where you can.

These forums are tuned more to the home user and you may want or demand answers. Remember that there is no one paid here to answer questions. So we all pull together with ideas.

Since your job hinges on the outcome, I'd get the call to Redmond about this.
Bob

Ya, I meant enterprise simply as in company, it's just that your reply seemed like you were referring to some specific plan of support from microsoft which would be called "Enterprise". That's why I was asking more information because I am not familiar with that, if there is such a thing. I guess I misunderstood you. Sorry if that is the case, English is not my first language.

When you said
"Sorry but Enterprise means to me you have the usual support lines in place."

If by "the usual support lines" you meant a local IT department, I am part of that department.

Can I get support from Microsoft even if we only have individual licenses? (no volume license, no special support plan). The question might sound obvious but I am new to this.

Also since you're implying that I might not be on the right forum, does anyone know of a similar windows xp technical forum more company-oriented?

"Can I get support from Microsoft even if we only have individual licenses?"

Yes.

This is a fine forum but you may want or demand "the correct answers." I don't know of a free forum that caters to IT staff for free.
Bob

I fail to see why being an IT employee makes it unacceptable for me to try to get help from this forum. I'll gladly provide help to others on here myself as soon as I have the chance.

"This is a fine forum but you may want or demand "the correct answers.""

Well, I never complained about the answers I received here, quite the opposite.

However I'm not going to blindly accept them either. If I firmly believe, for logical reasons which I explained and that you haven't cared to contradict, that a suggested solution is irrelevant, I'm not gonna say the opposite just to please someone. I said it politely, and even said I was going to actually try it anyway as soon as I can and post the results.

I don't really see why, but you obviously are still irritated from my original reply to you and there is not much that I can do about it. Thank you anyway, it did help.

IT staffers are usually demanding for the right answers as their jobs are on the line.

I do have some ideas about the issue but the story is incomplete.

Look at it as if you were a diagnostician. You presented the symptoms and want a cure without supplying all the underlying data. This is why I think you need the real support systems. That is, the lines you call in and pay up. They'll walk you through all the details and lead to where you need to dig out the details. Here it's all up to you to feed the details.
Bob

Now of course if there is no solution but to reimage, I'll just ask the user to reboot before she leaves work everyday.

Wondering if you found a solution to this.

We are experiencing this on our Dell Optiplex 755 Systems using WinXP SP2 or SP3. Whether I build them from an image or build them from scratch the issue will come up now and again.

A user will open a number of applications work with them for awhile then lose the ability to right-click. Performance Tab in Task Manager is blank, Services.exe window is blank, CPU usage is minimal, RAM usage is just over half the physical capacity.

Uninstalling/Reinstalling the mouse and/or changing the usb port does not correct the issue. Closing one application (doesn't matter which one) will allow the mouse to right click.

In searching the web I found that Clipboard might be causing it and downloaded an app to detect the issue only you can't run the app when the issue occurs.

Again, wondering if you got anywhere with Microsoft.

Thanks.

Since the problem was only happening once or twice a month and only when the laptop hadn't been rebooted in a long time, we ended up deciding that a regular reboot was a satisfying solution. Since then the user was asked to reboot at least every week, ideally twice a week, and I haven't heard complaints anymore, so I'm assuming that the problem has not come back yet.

So we did not contact Microsoft.

Thanks for your reply.

Since ours is happening every few hours, I'll have to pursue it further, one post suggested overheating was common in Dell systems. I'll speak with Dell.