windows 7 - Mouse will not click and drag

My mouse is currently having trouble with Click and Drag. It moves well, it clicks well (including double click); but it will not click and drag correctly. When dragging it just drops the highlighted area almost immediately after starting it.

The operating system is Windows 7 x6, and the mouse is a Microsoft 5 Button laser wired model that's approximately 3 years old.

The problem is relatively new, but has been happening consistently for several weeks through several reboots. Is there anything to try besides buying a new mouse?

The buttons on a typical mouse are small mechanical switches, and like all mechanical devices, they do go bad. Even if the switch contacts are just dirty, it's unlikely that you would be able to clean them, because they are usually sealed units. I think you will have to replace the mouse. To find out for sure, try another mouse as a test.

I once ran into this where I was trying to drag some emails to a folder an it wouldn't do it.

Of course restarting the machine fixed it but what I ultimately did was press ESC and I was able to drag again. Don't ask me why but it worked for me. Could be that Windows is stuck on trying to do something and you just press ESC and it goes back to normal.

Hope this helps.

On my version of Windows (Vista 64) I can click and drag on the desktop, drawing a selection rectangle as I go. This works using both the left and the right mouse buttons. Anyway, this would allow you to test the mechanical problem idea mentioned by boot13. It's a fair bet that one button has an intermittent failure, but much less likely that both left and right buttons have a very similar failure. If neither allow you to drag properly, the problem is elsewhere.

This is not always a mouse problem... I have this problem on MANY of my Windows 7 machines. It is an intermittent problem and is most definitely some issue with Windows as I can change to a new mouse 5 times and the same behavior; only restarting the entire machine temporarily fixes it.

I just had that issue tonight with my brother's computer: I could do everything with the mouse but click and drag so I ended up removing the last program installed (Rocketdock) and everything worked as normal. So if any of you are using Rocketdock and are having that problem in Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit, try removing it.

I have been dealing with this for a long time. Pressing the Esc key worked for me.

No idea why, but it beats rebooting.