start menu disappears

my pc works fine apart from when i click on the start button the menu
sometimes disappears for no apparent reason. sometimes i need to click on the
start button several times because it keeps on just disappearing every time,
usually within a split second, sometimes after a few seconds.

after a few attempts, the start menu remains. i am running windows XP home
with SP2. does anyone have any ideas what might be causing this frustrating
problem?

it usually only happens much later, usually just after i disconnect from the
internet and just before i switch off my pc. Here's the sequence of events:

when i have finished on my pc, i close all programmes/window browser
windows, then i disconnect from the internet, then i click on the start
button, and it's usually at that point that it does its disappearing trick
(and usually three or four times). this means i have to click the start
button a few times before the menu stays there long enough to allow me to
then click "Turn Off Computer".


i have done a virus scan and anti spam check, and there are no viruses or
spam. so not sure what else could be causing the problem.


thanks

In ,
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my pc works fine apart from when i click on the start button the menu
sometimes disappears for no apparent reason. sometimes i need to
click on the start button several times because it keeps on just
disappearing every time, usually within a split second, sometimes
after a few seconds.

after a few attempts, the start menu remains. i am running windows XP
home with SP2. does anyone have any ideas what might be causing this
frustrating problem?

it usually only happens much later, usually just after i disconnect
from the internet and just before i switch off my pc. Here's the
sequence of events:

when i have finished on my pc, i close all programmes/window browser
windows, then i disconnect from the internet, then i click on the
start button, and it's usually at that point that it does its
disappearing trick (and usually three or four times). this means i
have to click the start button a few times before the menu stays
there long enough to allow me to then click "Turn Off Computer".


i have done a virus scan and anti spam check, and there are no
viruses or spam. so not sure what else could be causing the problem.


thanks

I'm not 100% certain but the last time I had this problem at a personal
level (here in my home) it was solved by setting the desktop to run as a
separate instance of Explorer. (It was all I could think of and, lo and
behold, it did the trick.) The directions here should be pretty straight
forward.

Explorer as a Separate Process :
http://kgiii.info/windows/XP/tips/sep_explorer.html

I'd give that a try - with a reboot - and see if maybe it does the trick. If
not then I'd look at applications/processes that are running that might be
poorly coded and trying to swipe sections of the RAM that don't belong to
them.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/

"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of
existence." - Sherlock Holmes