Laptop "Hanging" (+ "Wheel Of Death" Shows) When Trying To Open Any Windows Folder Or A Word Document

[SurreyGuy]

Do any of you wonderful people know why ml laptop "hangs" for up to a minute (+ "wheel of death" shows) when I try to open any Windows folder or a Word document?

[wolf63]

My laptop has started playing up too. I scanned a load of items and the photos just showed as blank pages, files wouldn't open and saving files takes more patience than I have.

It is currently switched off to see if that helps it. It is about eight years old but has bee reliable up til now.

I look forward to seeing the answers that you will get to your question.
:-)

[Buenchico]

There are various things that might work but only one which I'm reasonably confident will actually work in all circumstances. It's what Currys PC World would do (and charge you £60 for) if you took your laptop to them, which is to reset Windows back to its 'fresh out of the box' state. As long as you choose the option to retain all your files, all of your photos, videos, documents, etc will be preserved. However you will still to reinstall any additional software that you've installed yourself onto the machine:
https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/reset-windows-10-pc

[SurreyGuy]

@Buenchico - thanks for the answer.

I got as far as clicking on "Keep my files". Then, after about five seconds, I got an on-screen message saying "There was a problem resetting your PC. No changes were made".

No explanation nor any further options were offered other than "Close" (error box).