Why Does Windows 10/11 Copy and Paste Stop Working After A While?

I have been fighting this problem for a couple of months. I've tried everything that can be found on the net and user groups up to and including a reinstall.

I have found a solution that others may find helpful.

This is to completely kill explorer. Then perform a copy paste.

Once this has been proven to work, restarting explorer gives access to all files again. Copy paste continues to function, at least until the computer goes into sleep mode.

Hope this works for all when you need to copy paste but cannot shut down the computer.

I'm still working with Microsoft level 3 and engineering. I found that copy and paste fails 24hrs of a reboot. For a temporary fix that works I scheduled a restart task at 5:00am. This gets me through the day without any problems. Use the following procedure to create a automatic restart.

To schedule an automatic reboot for your PC, you can use the Task Scheduler feature in Windows. Here are the steps to set it up:

1. Press the Windows key to open the Start menu.
2. Type “Task Scheduler” in the search field and select the corresponding result.
3. In the Task Scheduler, click on “Create task”.
4. Provide a descriptive name for the task.
5. Go to the “Triggers” tab and click “New” to create a new trigger.
6. Select “On a schedule”, choose the “Daily” radio option, and set the desired time for the reboot.
7. In the “Actions” tab, click “New”.
8. Select “Start a program” and enter the following:
   • Program/Script: %SystemRoot%\system32\shutdown.exe
   • Arguments: -r -f -t 10
9. Optionally, go to the “Conditions” tab and select “Start the task only if the computer is idle” to ensure the system restarts only when idle.
10. Click “OK” to create the scheduled task.

From now on, your Windows PC will automatically reboot according to the configured schedule. Before restarting, it will display a message, allowing active users to save their work. If you ever want to disable the scheduled restart, simply find the task in Task Scheduler, right-click on it, and select "Disable"

I'm going to throw my two cents in here too. Firstly, I think nobody wants to work with Microsoft on this because you don't really get anyone that really understand Windows and fundamentally what is really going on. I have this issue as well and I find it most often after the computer has come out of a long idle and almost always when the computer wakes from sleep. It is intermittent either way. What is interesting, when idle for long enough, my monitors flip on and off to no signal like some service gets stuck. Anyway, when this copy and paste thing occurs, other system features stop working too, this includes ability to open the task manager, clicking on shutdown/reboot buttons. When my PC goes into this state and I can't recover. I have to open command prompt and reboot by going "shutdown /r /t 0" This only happens in W11 for me. For your troubleshooting, I have discovered doing this command in command prompt has fixed this without a reboot. Not sure if this is a temporary fix or permanent as I have yet to test it's permanence. In Command Prompt do "DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth" It takes a while but it just worked. EDIT: It only works on local, not on any virtual/remote desktops and also I still cannot actually click restart/shutdown.

Not sure this is helpful but it’s stopped happening on my computer at least at the frequency it had been happening. Due to intermittent nature I can’t say it’s gone but … I haven’t lost cut/paste for about two weeks now. When I look at updates I see a release installed on April 24th that roughly coincided with the improved behavior

I'm still working with Microsoft level 3 and engineering. I found that copy and paste fails 24hrs of a reboot. For a temporary fix that works I scheduled a restart task at 5:00am. This gets me through the day without any problems. Use the following procedure to create a automatic restart.

To schedule an automatic reboot for your PC, you can use the Task Scheduler feature in Windows. Here are the steps to set it up:

1. Press the Windows key to open the Start menu.
2. Type “Task Scheduler” in the search field and select the corresponding result.
3. In the Task Scheduler, click on “Create task”.
4. Provide a descriptive name for the task.
5. Go to the “Triggers” tab and click “New” to create a new trigger.
6. Select “On a schedule”, choose the “Daily” radio option, and set the desired time for the reboot.
7. In the “Actions” tab, click “New”.
8. Select “Start a program” and enter the following:
   • Program/Script: %SystemRoot%\system32\shutdown.exe
   • Arguments: -r -f -t 10
9. Optionally, go to the “Conditions” tab and select “Start the task only if the computer is idle” to ensure the system restarts only when idle.
10. Click “OK” to create the scheduled task.

From now on, your Windows PC will automatically reboot according to the configured schedule. Before restarting, it will display a message, allowing active users to save their work. If you ever want to disable the scheduled restart, simply find the task in Task Scheduler, right-click on it, and select "Disable"