10
3
Occasionally, I get part of an application lingering behind on my desktop:
This is part of a context menu for an application. It is always top-most, meaning that it is always on the screen, and I cannot click on it (it just clicks through it). It has happened before, sometimes with whole windows. It remains on screen even if the application it originated from is no longer running.
How do I get rid of it without rebooting?
adrianbanks
Posted 2010-06-10T10:03:58.540
Reputation: 1 054
6
I've found a really easy hack to get rid of context menu phantoms like what you describe. Simply go into your screen resolution settings and change to a different resolution, then change back. The change of resolution seems to reset stuff at a lower level than where the phantom exists, which means the phantom gets cleaned up during the resolution change.
Nathan Ridley
Posted 2010-06-10T10:03:58.540
Reputation: 1 076
awesome hack, but it doesnt stop appearing them. – csomakk – 2013-08-06T09:08:12.717
This will only resolve the current floating item - it won't stop the problem. – Ian – 2014-02-21T09:02:45.420
1
I've seen this behaviour with certain video cards.
Upgrade your video card driver. If that doesn't work or you can't upgrade it, you can dial down the acceleration on the video card. Go to the Advanced system Properties (Advanced tab) and in performance options, either reduce the level of acceleration or untick "Fade or slide menus into view"
seanyboy
Posted 2010-06-10T10:03:58.540
Reputation: 1 568
1
Open cmd.exe as an administrator and type:
net stop uxsms
The ghosts are gone so you can leave it like that, but if you want you can re-start service
so then type:
net start uxsms
you can also add it as Desktop and Explorer Context Menu:
Add “Restart uxsms” Option in Desktop and Explorer Context Menu under Windows Vista and 7
user289290
Posted 2010-06-10T10:03:58.540
Reputation: 11
1I'm confused... he should type net stop uxsms twice? – Andrew Schulman – 2014-01-12T12:38:00.400
net stop uxsms and then net start uxsms – AminM – 2014-02-21T09:07:51.803
0
When this happens to me, it sometimes helps to switch back to the application to which this popup belongs. Then switch back to the application I want to use in the forgeround.
Most of the times, the popup then disappears.
Martin
Posted 2010-06-10T10:03:58.540
Reputation: 3 619
The application it came from is no longer running. – adrianbanks – 2010-06-10T11:39:59.480
Oh, okay. Maybe you can use the task manager to terminate explorer. Usually, it will be restarted automatically after termination. But I don't know if this has negative side-effects. You should save and close opened documents at any rate. – Martin – 2010-06-10T13:43:01.710
1No, that doesn't work either. The only thing that seems to get rid of it is killing the desktop window manager (dwm.exe), but this then makes things paint very strangely on the screen and I end up having to reboot. – adrianbanks – 2010-06-10T23:37:04.740
Okay, I see everything's resolved, but I'd like to add (for further info) that there's no problem in stopping explorer.exe, and you don't even need to save everything. if it doesn't start again automatically, you can start Task Manager, and in the first tab, right-click anywhere, and click the only option. Key in 'explorer.exe' without the quotations and you're done. You can run explorer again. – Antrikshy – 2010-09-06T12:14:39.023
0
The problem is caused by Aero, but there's an easy way to stop it.
To remove any existing floating windows open up task manager and kill the dwm.exe process (Desktop Window Manager).
You shouldn't encounter the problem after this point.
Ian
Posted 2010-06-10T10:03:58.540
Reputation: 221
-1 the problem is obviously not caused by aero.. the problem existed long before aero. People saw it in XP loads of times but in Win7 the lingering is stronger. – barlop – 2016-09-15T23:09:54.067
Related: The ghost of icons past, should I pray to Saint William?
– Tamara Wijsman – 2010-10-09T17:09:11.040nice question! It is really annoying too on Windows7! – Junior M – 2010-11-21T18:38:27.673
I've added a new answer - a little late in the day but I can confirm that it does fix it (in Windows7 at least). – Ian – 2014-02-21T09:03:38.987