Moving Mouse Can Make Things Disappear

Hi This is a strange occurrence; if I have several pages open in my taskbar, I'll click on one, it pops up, then goes back down to the taskbar when I go to move my mouse to it. It may happen several times until it will stay put. Or, I may have a popup box, be it an installation box for a program etc; when I try to move my mouse into it, it drops down to the taskbar. It takes several attempts to keep it there. Another problem is thin black vertical lines on pages keep flashing; also a line appears over the taskbar and hovers sometimes or flickers. All these problems occurred at the same time. Thankyou Belinda

Hi Belinda.

How does it behave if you boot to Safe Mode with Networking? If better then something is starting at boot that is causing the problem.

Use msconfig to determine what is causing the problem.

These are good tutorials on using msconfig in XP or Vista:
How to use msconfig in Windows XP
How to use msconfig in Windows Vista

Click on Start then Run, type msconfig and press Enter.
Click on the Startup tab, record what is currently starting then click the Disable All button.
Reboot and see if it runs normal.
If yes then use msconfig to enable several items at a time till you find the culprit.

If no, boot to Safe Mode again, start msconfig and click on the Services tab.
Check the Hide All Microsoft Services box, record what is currently starting then click the Disable All button.
Again, do a regular boot, see if it runs normal.
If yes then use msconfig to enable services till you find the culprit.

Once you've found the culprit, uninstall it or find out how to eliminate it from your system.
Simply disabling it in msconfig is a temporary fix at best.
Enable everything else you disabled.

Ok, thankyou, I will try it :))

Ok, well everything seems to be running the same with start-up programs removed or added. The pages that minimised when the cursor was moved was fixed; it was a taskbar issue and that has now been resolved. I also discovered that some of the images I recieve in Hotmail are not supported my end as some images are viewable, some are not. So that issue is resolved as far as I'm concerned. The problems that still exist are the flashing thin black vertical lines…also the mouse scroller action is delayed whereby scrolling up or down a screen takes a month of Sundays. The computer has also slowed considerably meaning that transference from page to page is lagging; seems I sit here waiting and wasting away time while the computer decides to actually do something. I have defragged and all that jazz; just seems that something occurred one day that changed the whole ambience of how this comp works.

Please Run the PCPitstop Full Tests, here: PCPitstop Full Tests

You must use Internet Explorer as it needs to install an ActiveX program.

Note: Vista users with UAC must first Right-click IE - Select "Run as Administrator"

If you haven't already registered, Click - Sign up now! (left hand column in User Login)

Register and create a password
Accept the ActiveX component to allow your machine to run the Full Tests
Registering and accepting the ActiveX are both SAFE and FREE.

The Full Tests take less than 5 minutes for most machines.

Once you have your Results, please post the URL (the http:// stuff) back here into this thread for review.

Note: Vista users, please close your instance of IE "Running as Administrator" after you are finished reviewing your Results.

Caution: During the testing of Video Adapter, a variety of patterns, shapes, colors and text are “flashed” onto the users monitor screen. In the many thousands of daily uses of the PCPitstop Full Tests over several years, two individuals who suffer epilepsy experienced discomfort and temporary dizziness when viewing the flashing patterns.

If you know that you are susceptible to photo driven seizure, please look away from your screen during the Video Adapter testing sequence.

Note: The PCPitstop Full Tests Results is a free service, but is supported by various paid product advertisements for utilities that "could" remedy the OP's problem.

Since this site is a "free-help" forum, we do not recommend or endorse purchase of automated utilities, and will assist you in manually correcting any problems and settings necessary to optimize your machine's performance. Ask your questions here. We'll help you walk through any necessary steps.

http://www.pcpitstop.com/betapit/sec.asp?conid=24001603

I opened a couple of previous 'flashing lines' pages and they dont flash in Explorer; seems to be a Firefox prob.

Okay, then start FireFox (Safe Mode), see if that makes a difference. Start / Programs / Mozilla Firefox / FireFox (Safe Mode) It's the same as starting IE8 with no Add-ons.

Yes…still flashing in Safe Mode :))

When did this start happening? Try doing a System Restore to a date before that, see if that fixes the problem. Start / Programs / Accessories / System Tools / System Restore This will not affect any of your data, it just restores the registry and many system files to a specific date. Many times that can fix a weird problem like this.