Explorer.exe prevents mouse clicks on almost every Windows proccess

I

Ivan Neves

The process explorer.exe keeps "crashing" constantly, provoking this bug. This bug is like the mouse click "goes through" the apps, clicking on the Desktop instead, thus the apps "lose focus", or as if the windows aren't even open, so it just clicks on the desktop. This bug also freezes the taskbar, so clicks won't work and the hover effect when you pass through a pinned app won't work asweel, as if the taskbar has been closed or isn't even open. Everything related to the keyboard keeps working, so i can open the task manager, windows explorer, access apps and folders with mouse, etc with shortcuts.

This problem, however, don't seem to affect everery app. Some Code Editors/IDE's(Visual Studio Community) and some Games keep working(as long as you alt-tab to them, because i can't click on the app to work on it), but other programs like Web Browsers, Drawing Apps like Aseprite, and everything related to the Windows Explorer simply can't be used because even if i alt-tab to them, the "ghost clicks" persist.


I'm 99.99% convinced this problem is related to the explorer.exe process, because if i end it on the task manager, within 5-10 seconds everything goes back to "normal"(of course, i can't use anything related to the Windows Explorer if i do it, so is not a workaround). Restarting the process don't work, finishing and re-opening it also won't work, because the problems comes back if i don't give time to it and restarting the PC only works sometimes. If i close the explorer.exe, after 10-15 minutes, restarting it works and i can go back to normal, until it happens again.


I've already formatted the PC to a 100% clean state about 3 days ago, with the newest .iso available for Windows 10 on Microsoft website and the problem persisted. I formatted the PC using the windows Repair tool and the newest .iso was downloaded with it. I chose the options to wipe everything.


Windows is not 100% updated, the Update KB4560960 can't be installed because i get an error when the instalation gets to 100%.


Before the problem, Windows was a bit out of date, but not much really. One dayish after a "ghost" update(it wasn't the newest for sure), the problem started to appear. Since i saw the update was a bit old, my first instinct was to go to Windows Update to make it more up to date(but couldn't install the update i said before). The problem got much better and started appearing much, much less often, but still wasn't solved.


This was when i thought it could be a virus or something, so i formatted the PC because it was in my plans anyway, so i used the event to just do it because i had procrastinated enough. When i formatted, the faulty update is no longer on my update history, so i can't manualy remove it nor do i know how to go back to a previous, safe state.


OBS: The update being the root of the problem is pure speculation, but given that i completely wiped the PC with a clean Windows, but it already came with the probably faulty update, it's unlikely that the problem is anything else, like a virus.

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