Right Click on Start, several items not working. Also Run As Administrator "mostly" not working.

Hello,

I have a very old Windows 11 install. At least 4-5 years old. Have had to run in-place reinstall once on it, a long, long time ago, it was successful. Did not have any issues for years.

Recently however I started noticing a couple of things.
First it was the nVidia APP - when I try to launch it, it opens its window, I get the green spinning wheel for a while and then an error message "There was a problem with NVIDIA App.


its asking to reinstall. When doing so sometimes it would launch straight after install, most times it wont, and most definitely after a restart it does not anymore.

I am mentioning this only because seemingly it coincided with the other issues I am having - when I right-click on the start button



Several items do not respond, as In the popup disappears and nothing happens. Those are Event Viewer, Device Manager, Disk Management, Computer Management, Task Manager, File Explorer,

When I right-click on the taskbar and pick Task Manager from there, it opens normally.

Then if I type CMD after clicking the START button and click on the "Run as administrator" on the right, nothing happens. All the other items work, such as "Open", "Open File Location" etc.


Right Click on this CMD and selecting Run As Administrator also does not work, other items here still work.


If I follow "open File Location" from here,:



Run As Administrator still does not work. But If I do "Open File Location " again from here:



doing right click on the actual EXE and Run As Administrator does work from here ...

So this is my problem, or at least the extent of it as far as what I noticed so far.

Steps I took so far:
- Confirmed my account is Admin (well Run As Admin does work, just not from certain locations)
- ran SFC SCANNOW. First instance did find issues and fixed them, Subsequent runs complete with no errors. No difference to the issue.
- ran DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth. Completes without errors. No difference to the issue.
- Ran in-place Win11 reinstall/repair. No difference.

Please help.

Test using another user account.
Also, please complete the device specifications section of your forum user profile. Include version and build of Windows.

Done.

Added a test admin account. Same story on that one.

Do you per chance use any 3rd party app that alters the GUI? If so uninstall it and restart. See if the issue still exists.

I do not, no

suchy101 said:

ran SFC SCANNOW. First instance did find issues and fixed them, Subsequent runs complete with no errors. No difference to the issue.
- ran DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth. Completes without errors. No difference to the issue.

Click to expand...

Do this one more time, except run the same DISM command first. (Make surre you are running the command prompt as administrator)
Restart
Then open command prompt as admin again and run the SFC /SCANNOW command.

If the problem still exists, and since you already did a repair install without success, I have only 3 other suggestions.
1. See if it happens in clean boot. If it doesn't happen in a clean boot, you have some software conflicting with Windows. You have to use process of elimination to find which software it is.. Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 11 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts Tutorial

2. If you have a backup plan in place, as most of us here do, the best thing in cases like this is to restore an image made prior to when you started having issues.

3. If you don't have a backup, perform a reset. If you have bitlocker enabled, I strongly suggest you disable bitlocker first.
Choose the reset and keep files option. Reset your PC - Microsoft Support
This keeps your files. but reinstalls windows. All 3rd party apps and user settings are also removed..
An alternative to a reset is a clean install.
I strongy suggest you backup your personal files first in case somethig goes awry. I always remember Murphy's Law.

By the way, you have a really nice setup there

suchy101 said:

Hello,

I have a very old Windows 11 install. At least 4-5 years old. Have had to run in-place reinstall once on it, a long, long time ago,

Click to expand...

You must be VERY YOUNG to say 4-5 years is a long time ago

When was the first time you noticed this and can you restore to a point before that date?
Anything newly installed around that time?

glasskuter said:

Do this one more time, except run the same DISM command first. (Make surre you are running the command prompt as administrator)
Restart
Then open command prompt as admin again and run the SFC /SCANNOW command.

Click to expand...

Did as instructed, no change. Moved on to the numbered suggestions:
1. No change after Clean Boot
2. No backup plan. I am an idiot.
3. Hesitant about Resetting. I have no issue doing it (well, maybe a little, so much crap accumulated ...) but I have been dabbling in PC's long enough to expect that even a nuclear option will not fix it, apart from a clean install. Which is such a PITA. Which is why I am hesitating. WIll keep chipping away trying to find solution before resorting to this.

glasskuter said:

By the way, you have a really nice setup there

Click to expand...

Thanks. I checked what details people put in there I thought I will do the same, did not mean to brag or anything. It did cost an arm and a leg. Got reference 4090 at MSRP and never looked back. So happy I did, considering the state of things with GPUs and now RAM ...

john1955 said:

You must be VERY YOUNG to say 4-5 years is a long time ago

When was the first time you noticed this and can you restore to a point before that date?
Anything newly installed around that time?

Click to expand...

Actually - not ... I am a child of the 80s. I just remember times when Windows (95, 98, XP) reinstall was basically a weekly thing. So having a system that holds up for a year, let alone 5, with a catastrophic failures requiring a repair in between, which worked to my amazement - is something to behold in my eyes. Hence the "very, very old" comment.

Will look into restore. Hate doing it as I have bad experience - tried it a few times in the past, broke things that were working (like new installs) but did not fix whatever was the reason for running it ...

As for any new installs now - no, nothing I can think of.

One thing to note though : I am going on some really dodgy websites littered with malware daily. Was relying on my AV for protection, and more recently started doing it from inside of VM which has no AV on it. However im there, my host AV (NOD32) keeps picking up threats. Can malware jump out of VM environment and infect host ?

Perhaps I should run some additional scans with different AV's ?

EDIT:
Ran some additional AV scanners - nah. all good. Back to square 1.


P.S. I just noticed that right click on any desktop icon -> OPEN also does not work. Nor does Pin To Start.
so annoying

You started this thread by mentioning that your Nvidia APP was a problem.
I think that your CPU has internal graphics capabilities.
As a troubleshooting step, try removing your graphics card and running on the built-in UHD graphics of the CPU to see if there are any differences in overall computer behavior.

telepro21 said:

You started this thread by mentioning that your Nvidia APP was a problem.
I think that your CPU has internal graphics capabilities.
As a troubleshooting step, try removing your graphics card and running on the built-in UHD graphics of the CPU to see if there are any differences in overall computer behavior.

Click to expand...

I got a hard-tube water cooled setup. Removing the GPU is definatelly at the end of my list of potential checks. But thank you for the suggestion

I would try Windows Reset and then a clean install befoire that.

That NV App is misbehaving, but not 100% broken. If I reboot. Uninstall it. Reinstall, It works fine. Untill next reboot. Then it wont start properly anymore.

I am also playing games every night and did not notice anything off to be honest.

suchy101 said:

I got a hard-tube water cooled setup. Removing the GPU is definatelly at the end of my list of potential checks. But thank you for the suggestion

I would try Windows Reset and then a clean install befoire that.

That NV App is misbehaving, but not 100% broken. If I reboot. Uninstall it. Reinstall, It works fine. Untill next reboot. Then it wont start properly anymore.

I am also playing games every night and did not notice anything off to be honest.

Click to expand...

What about not reinstalling the NV app for a while?
Is that app part of the problem or is it a victim of some other issue
Any unusual errors in the event log that started about the same time?

john1955 said:

What about not reinstalling the NV app for a while?
Is that app part of the problem or is it a victim of some other issue
Any unusual errors in the event log that started about the same time?

Click to expand...

ah, very good points.

I will try getting rid of the NVApp and check. My initial thoughts were it was a victim of whatever is wrong with the system but will confirm.

As far as Logs - I am not proficient in reading them at all. Any chance/way to get some assistance please ?

suchy101 said:

ah, very good points.

I will try getting rid of the NVApp and check. My initial thoughts were it was a victim of whatever is wrong with the system but will confirm.

As far as Logs - I am not proficient in reading them at all. Any chance/way to get some assistance please ?

Click to expand...

Not many are proficient. I had the same set of errors in mine for YEARS and only just a week or two ago was able to figure out what was causing them by asking Google AI. It could not say exactly what was causing it but it did tell me that it was probably certificates . . . A light-bulb came on in my head, it was my Eudora Email app. It was always 5 errors multiple times a day and I have 5 email addresses that it checks every time I opened Eudora.

So first look for errors that were not there before this issue happened and then see if Google AI or ChatGPT has a possible answer for them by copy pasting the error details . . . it MIGHT point you in the right direction.

My Quickbooks causes erros as well but it's been doing that in every OS Ive had for 10 years in Windows XP, 7, 10 and 11. It's probably Quickbooks trying to "call home" which I have disabled