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I have a new problem that has cropped up just in the last week or two. I can no longer drag and drop my files and folders in Windows Explorer. I have Windows 7 on a HP Notebook. It came installed on the computer last December when I bought it (09). I've never had an issue with it since then, and I'm not sure how to find the settings to enable drag and drop or re-enable it. I know I've done it before on this machine, many times- and just noticed it first in Thunderbird, (my email desktop application) then in explorer. I did recently install the SP1 (spelling??) a few weeks ago, and have installed a few other odds and ends programs, but I'm pretty sure drag and drop was working okay until a few days ago.
Any help would be appreciated. As a genealogy writer, that's a must have feature.
Thanks.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
This happened to me yesterday.
In Windows Explorer, click a file with the left mouse button and keep the button held down. Then press the Escape key. Drag and drop is miraculously re-enabled.
I think just pressing the escape will work too but I'm no longer in a position to test that. I got this from http://it.thelibrarie.com/weblog/2010/06/drag-and-drop-stops-working/
This happened to me yesterday.
In Windows Explorer, click a file with the left mouse button and keep the button held down. Then press the Escape key. Drag and drop is miraculously re-enabled.
I think just pressing the escape will work too but I'm no longer in a position to test that. I got this from http://it.thelibrarie.com/weblog/2010/06/drag-and-drop-stops-working/
I don't feel like reading through everything to see if this has been mentioned. The escape fix worked for me with Win 7. The only thing I have that is unique from coworkers is a wireless keyboard and mouse. I expect that has something to do with my issue.
Thanks Nige!
Oh my god, thank you!
I restarted twice yesterday (this machine runs services for my whole network, restarting is NOT good).
The problem kept coming back. HOLDING Left mouse-button and tapping Esc WORKED!
I was going crazy. There are registry fixes and all kinds of crazy stuff for Win95/98/XP, but everything under Win7 was about desktop icon auto-arrangement or trying to arrange files in a folder.
None of the answers provided had anything to do with my issue. This fixed it and it hasn't come back yet. Thanks again!
(This DID occur after a browser VM to local-disk Drag & Drop operation was interrupted.)
Worked like a charm! Thank you.
I'm subscribed to this question because the posted solution doesn't work for me either. The fact that this is still a problem for so long suggests third-party software is the culprit.
