mouse clicks are not recognized anymore

hi folks,

i have the weirdest problem since a little while that is bothering me quite a bit, namely: i cant use the system with the mouse anymore or rather it is severely limmited. these are the symptoms during which i can move the mouse pointer alright, but:

• no application reacts to mouse clicks anymore
  • cant switch apps via task bar
  • press buttons
  • ...
• the mouse over event seems also affected b/c when hovering over widgets where the mouse pointer would usually change, it doesnt.
• i have also noticed once, when this happened in a text editor, that when moving the mouse, the viewable text would scroll if i move the mouse out of the editors area on the north or south end

luckily i have a short remedy to the problem, namely:

1. pressing ctrl+alt+del
   -> brings me to the screnn to lock, wtich user, ... screen
2. ESC
   -> back to where i was

when i do this all is well again.

so far i have no clue what triggers this as it happens seemingly at random and in diff. situations. some days it only happens only a few times, while at others this happens constantly.

so long

BTW:

• i'm a developer and know my way around Windows quite well.
• when this 1st started i hadn't changed my system, by installing new software except for the windows updates, that i cant avoid due to company policy

case report:

i just happened again while using FF. symptoms:

• cannot click button on webpage (submit, etc)
• can click on FF tab and menus which still open (havent tested though if they execute)
• cant switch apps via task bar
• switched to eclipse with alt+tab
• and cant click/activate any button/menu there, but the editor got the focus now
• when switching back to FF and clicking inside the webpage view area i get switched back to eclispe
• opening IE but cant click anything web/buttons there either
• killing FF from cmd line doesnt solve the problem either only ctrl+alt+del

case report: remote desktop

i often connect from home via RDP to the computer, but with that i didnt have the problem yet

for whatever reason the symptoms havent appeared for well over week and i only did the normal windows updates.

so i guess that there was somewhere a faulty update that got fixed in the meantime...