BIG problem with desktop and cursor --- supercedes "Cortana----Sea

I have posted about the problem of Cortana or maybe Search opening spontaneously and frequently.  A bunch of people have looked at it but no answers yet.

The situation has escalated.  Cursor jumps around, and just now everything under the sun on my desktop opened, like 5 copies each of 10 documents for instance.

I have looked up fixes for what all the sites call Cortana opening up.  Moist of the solutions assume the problem is touch pad gestures, and how to turn them off.  I've done it, and I don't use the touchpad anyhow.  This is not the fix.  If it is Cortana, apparently it is now a very invasive program and difficult to disarm.

Now, I do not know if this is a Windows problem, a hardware problem, or a virus problem. 

Anyone familiar with this?  Know where I should be posting the problem?

This computer is getting sporadically unusable.

'Nother thing: my wife was trying to get onto her AOL account on this computer and some window about Daily Sports Fantasy kept opening and wouldn't go away.

This is a Dell Inspiron 3541, 3 years old?  Recently Windows crashed and I had to reinstall it.

denno

Thanks.  I'll try it and see.  Programs opening at random was a problem before the re-installation. (This iteration is way more aggressive.)

Does the problem occur if you boot to Safe Mode? The easiest way to do this is boot normally, then click on Start then Power. Hold down the Shift key and click on Restart. You'll end up at the Advanced Boot Menu window where you can get to Safe Mode (may take a couple clicks).

If the problem does not occur in Safe Mode then you have a software problem, If it does then it is most likely a hardware problem.

Greetings!  I wasn't sure I was gonna get back here.
Juliet, while I hate to think there's malware in my rather new re-installed system already, of course it'd be a good idea to check.

However, Ztruker suggests a Safe Mode test, which seems reasonable and easy and should be quick.

Well, lemme tellya both….

I followed instructions to get into safe mode.  Instead of what I expected, I got a screen familiar to me from the travails of getting this computer rebooted one last time: onr eith four boxes offering options up to reinstalling Windows.  I managed to select one that led to another one that asked me to enter a number to choose enabling various options.  I entered 4  for safe mode.
It started to boot up and asked me for my password.  In fact, this setup I'd opted for a PIN.  I entered it and got told my password was incorrect.  Went around that a few times; then tried to power off manually.  Caught a glimpse of the word Hibernating before it shut down.  Powering back up took me around the same circle. 

Eventually I thought to unplug it and take out the battery and could finally boot up normally.

I'm leaving out my misadventures trying to reach this site on my wife's tablet.  I was thinking I'd have to go to the library tomorrow and try to reach the forum from there.

OK, then.  Can you help me to get to Safe Mode so we can run that simple observation?

Thanks.  I am putting in all the convolutions of my computer adventures because it always seems that whatever online or guided instructions I am following how carefully, I end up with screens and drop-downs other than what the instructions give me to expect.  Add to that that I don't think Win 10 is organized very logically.  Add to that the two biggies: automatic updates that shut the computer off whether you've go unfinished work going or not; and this generally invasive Cortana app which has bugs, and I think the current state of consumer computing is getting HARDER to use and less useful in some aspects. 

denno

UPDATE OF MY UPDATE OF MY UPDATE

Got into Safe Mode by way of msconfig.  (When it asked for my password, I tried my old one from before the Win 10 reload.  It worked.  !? )

Guess what was the first thing I saw?  The popup.

Hardware problem, then?

Sure sounds like hardware. Try disabling the touchpad in Device Manager. See if that makes any difference?

What kind of mouse do you have? Wired or Wireless USB? Have you tried a different one?

Touchpad is and has been off.  Mouse is wireless.  A USB one is my next experiment next time I get to "town," 17 mi. away.  Today, I hope.
Hmm.  Wonder what happens if I turn the touchpad on and pull out the mouse dongle? —- Nope!

I'll reiterate that most of the online fixes offered for this problem seem to think it's to do with touchpad gestures.  Not here.

I'll report when I've tried a USB mouse.

When you say Touchpas has been  off, what exactly do you mean. Was it disabled in Device Manager. If not, just for grins, try it.

Yeah, I went in there and turned it off.  Didn't get to town for errands but have to Sat., so we'll try the plug-in mouse trick…

Pfooey!

Thought I had something going here….

Tried a USB mouse and nothing happened for awhile, though I was not actually using the computer for a day or two.

This morning it went nuts, starting with a 45-second spell where those windows popped up as often and 3 times a second.

Note:  The USB port I've had the WiFi dongle in for a year or two doesn't work for the wired mouse, nor a camera card reader I have.  Had to plug the mouse into another port.

Note:  The window coming up most often now is the Windows button.  Onscreen, over that (or whichever) button is some kind of action (momentarily looks like a little circular splash) and the mouse is wedded to that corner.  I can't move it very successfully to a neutral spot and click there to get the window to close.  Often have to use the touchscreen to do that.

Checked the drivers for mouse and touchpad.  Drivers up to date.  (Mouse driver is dated 2006.)

That's it from the dugout.  Back to you, Jim…

Any clues in Event Viewer?  Enter eventvwr.msc from a Run box.

Also check System Reliability, see if anything flagged in there: How to View Reliability History in Windows 10

This is new interior territory to me, but…..event viewer seems to have nothing.  Reliability pretty much times Windows was closed improperly (mostly when I was having that trouble getting out of Safe Mode boot, I think).  And various app shutdowns due to non-responsiveness.  The bulk of the latter are Skype, which I don't even use, and never open on purpose.

(Starting to mumble to myself about getting a new computer….)

Twenty iterations of FaceBook just opened.

What about your keyboard? We've been focusing on the mouse but could the keyboard be involved?

When you reinstalled Windows, did you do a Clean Install from a booted flash drive or a repair install (ran setup.exe from a booted system).
 
I think it's time to try another install only this time make sure it's a true Clean Install. Make sure you have everything backed up as you will be deleting all partitions on the boot drive during the installation process and installing to a raw, unallocated drive.
 
Follow this tutorial: Clean Install Windows 10

Follow step 1 to get the latest ISO using the Media Creation Tool then follow the rest of the instructions. Ask any questions and I'll answer when I can.