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In my Vista SP2 desktop PC, after some houres I'm not able anymore to drag & drop any file to any window. There is only (IMHO) one way to solve this problem: to log off and open a new session. I suppose that it may be related to keyboard drivers (Logitech Setpoint) but not sure, any idea? Thanks.

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What do you mean exactly by "not able to "drag&drop" ? What fails exactly ? You can't start dragging a file, or you can't drop it to another place ? –  Gnoupi Aug 25 '09 at 9:10
I can't start dragging, it doesn't "move" –  ricciolo Aug 25 '09 at 12:31
This could be a simple typo, but wouldn't mouse drivers be more likely? if so, is it a wireless mouse (what sort of wireless? bluetooth?) further googling in that direction might help –  Leon Bambrick Aug 25 '09 at 13:26
I have occasionally had mouse drag fail. For me, it was some weird interaction between VirtualBox and something else on my system. Closing/restarting VirtualBox fixes it for me. –  erichui Aug 25 '09 at 13:42
I have a LOGITECH Cordless Wave keyboard/Mouse and any Virtualbox in my system –  ricciolo Aug 25 '09 at 14:57

5 Answers 5

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Do you use texter from lifehacker.com? If you do disable it see if that fixes it there are a few options you need to change to get it working correctly.

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YES I use it!! I going to see if stopping Texter will fiw the problem!! Why do you do thing that Texter is the "bad boy"??? –  ricciolo Sep 10 '09 at 20:48
I have people at work use it to save themselves time we ran into a few problems was driving them crazy. I took a look at it and figured out it was causing the problems. If it ends up working mind marking me down as the answer? –  user10547 Sep 10 '09 at 22:54

I know this is a fairly old question and there is an accepted answer. But for the record I'd like to propose my solution:

Just press Win+R!

Then close the run box or use it to run something. I don't really know why, but it works every time (at least on Windows 7). It fixes OLE drag&drop like in file managers, text editors, browser etc.

My guess is that the (Windows default) run box somehow resets the clipboard/OLE system that is backing the drag&drop operations.

Of course it doesn't fix dragging from or to a hanging app, but I think that is obvious.

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Wow I can't believe the fix was that simple. This has been an issue with VMWare that has been bugging me for longer than I care to remember. I don't think it simply resets the drag-n-drop mechanism, however, since even shutting down VMWare and the guest OS entirely doesn't even resolve it for me. In any event, this should be the accepted answer. –  b1nary.atr0phy Jul 30 '13 at 15:21
Thanks, it worked and made my day way less annoying. –  ekse Sep 4 at 18:58

Are you sure you are using the most recent driver version?

Simply updating those might take away the cause.

Plus it would help if you give a clearer description of your problem. Is it just the file that doesn't "move" or are you unable to move your mouse cursor as well?

Edit: after some searching it seems there might be a conflict with UAC sometimes, to what level do you have it set?

Also check that you haven’t got your escape key stuck. Do this either physically—something may be wedging it down—or else virtually—a program may have set it as on. This has happened to lots of people, if this post is anything to go by.

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UAC is off on my PC ; the mouse moves normally but files at the opposite don't move, I will check for the escape key...thx –  ricciolo Aug 26 '09 at 17:30
I noticed that the drag&drop fonction is back typing ctr/alt/del –  ricciolo Sep 9 '09 at 15:54

Some times (once a month or so) I find that dragging and dropping stops and it is due to the process being hung.

Take a look at task manager and see if you can see drag.exe listed, if you can, kill it and it restores it.

Saying this, I just took a look at c:\windows on my machine and can not see drag.exe anywhere, so I do not know if this was some third party problem I was having or not - I have had it on two separate machines, so possibly not.

If you are sure not software, check your drivers and batteries (if using a wireless or weird mouse).

Lastly, you may want to try a spare mouse if you one, just to rule out any other hardware problems.

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I use Texter and have this problem frequently. Simple solution that works for me is to hit the Esc key on my keyboard. Works every time but I can't explain why.

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