Windows 10 start menu key left click options not working

Good day, good people. My windows 10 left click menu doesn't bring up the menu tray anymore since after I shut down my system using the alt+f4 combination keys. Likewise, neither the running apps tray nor the network one opens up on left click. I also cannot multitask anymore as I can only open one folder, seeing as the non functionality of the left click options limits my ability to. I've had these exact issues before which forced me to reinstall the OS from scratch. But I can't always install the software as it requires time and some backing up. Please anyone who knows a way around this should help with a guide. Thanks in advance!

hTconeM9user said:

Hi have you run trouble shooter or tried to do a repair by Pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL which will shut it down and restart with a lot of options.
Why did you press those keys because on my laptop it disables the touch pad and left click
You could if desktop uninstall mouse from program and features and reinstall it again

Thanks for your response, sir. I have trouble shooted and just did the cntrl+alt+del buttons combination, but it's still not working. I pressed the keys on impulse as I have kind of become accustomed to shutting down my system that way for sometime now. Guess I have to stop beginning this moment. It's a laptop. Thanks again, sir.

Hi, you mentioned you have a laptop. Can you be more specific about what's happening please.

1. Has left click on your touchpad stopped working?
2. Do you have any kind of mouse plugged in, and is left click working or not on that?
3. If you have not tried an external (USB) mouse, can you please do so and advise the result?

You mentioned you've had this happen before, and had to reinstall.
Have you heard of disk imaging? This means you have a compressed copy of your disk/partitions which you can restore, provided you have created the disk imaging program's boot disk, even if your PC is unbootable, provided there's no hardware problem, in a fairly short time.

By taking disk images regularly and before major changes, you can get your PC back exactly as it was, and you have a backup as you can copy files from the images.

Macrium reflect and Aomei Backupper (free) are good, e.g.

Ztruker said:

Alt+F4 is a valid way to shutdown, no different than doing a shutdown from the Start Menu. That should not have caused corruption.

Try running the following from a Elevated Command Prompt, one at a time:

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
SFC /scannow

My point exactly. This is the 3rd time I had to reinstall the OS due to same reasons. Thanks for your input. I'll run those should I encounter the sort again, as I have already reinstalled the OS from scratch.

hTconeM9user said:

Thank you for coming on here and trying to help the guy
Now you can see what his problem is

Thank you, sir. You've been quite helpful, I couldn't say the thanks word enough.

dalchina said:

Hi, you mentioned you have a laptop. Can you be more specific about what's happening please.

1. Has left click on your touchpad stopped working?
2. Do you have any kind of mouse plugged in, and is left click working or not on that?
3. If you have not tried an external (USB) mouse, can you please do so and advise the result?

You mentioned you've had this happen before, and had to reinstall.
Have you heard of disk imaging? This means you have a compressed copy of your disk/partitions which you can restore, provided you have created the disk imaging program's boot disk, even if your PC is unbootable, provided there's no hardware problem, in a fairly short time.

By taking disk images regularly and before major changes, you can get your PC back exactly as it was, and you have a backup as you can copy files from the images.

Macrium reflect and Aomei Backupper (free) are good, e.g.

Both the left and right click fail to work on some instances while they do on others... say, they are mutually exclusive. That is, where the right click works, the left click will fail to and vice versa. No I didnt have a mouse plugged in. Thanks for the response, I really appreciate!

I would suggest trying to eliminate a touchpad problem- beg/buy/borrow a USB mouse and see what happens..

dalchina said:

I would suggest trying to eliminate a touchpad problem- beg/buy/borrow a USB mouse and see what happens..

Alright. Thanks again. I was hoping to upgrade to the enterprise version from pro to see if it rids of the problem.