Computer says NO!

Not an expert here.

What are you using to Copy/Paste? Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V? Right-click context menus? Ctrl-Insert and Shift-Insert? Do none of these work? What version of Windows or other OS? What had you been doing prior to you noticing you lost your copy facility? Laptop or Desktop? Standard keyboard, wireless? Have you booted to safe mode and tried? Can you copy and paste winthin a DOS window? Lots of questions.

Don't think I'll be able to help but with some more info, someone else might.

 

Open a text editor and type exactly what you see below......................

A computer is a general purpose device that can be programmed to carry out a finite set of arithmetic or logical operations. Since a sequence of operations can be readily changed, the computer can solve more than one kind of problem.
Conventionally, a computer consists of at least one processing element and some form of memory. The processing element carries out arithmetic and logic operations, and a sequencing and control unit that can change the order of operations based on stored information. Peripheral devices allow information to be retrieved from an external source, and the result of operations saved and retrieved.
The first electronic digital computers were developed between 1940 and 1945 in the United Kingdom and United States. Originally they were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers (PCs).[SUP][1][/SUP] In this era mechanical analog computers were used for military applications.

The history of the modern computer begins with two separate technologies, automated calculation and programmability, but no single device can be identified as the earliest computer, partly because of the inconsistent application of that term. A few devices are worth mentioning though, like some mechanical aids to computing, which were very successful and survived for centuries until the advent of the electronic calculator, like the Sumerian abacus, designed around 2500 BC[SUP][4][/SUP] of which a descendant won a speed competition against a modern desk calculating machine in Japan in 1946,[SUP][5][/SUP]the slide rules, invented in the 1620s, which were carried on five Apollo space missions, including to the moon[SUP][6][/SUP] and arguably the astrolabe and the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient astronomical computer built by the Greeks around 80 BC.[SUP][7][/SUP] The Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria (c. 10–70 AD) built a mechanical theater which performed a play lasting 10 minutes and was operated by a complex system of ropes and drums that might be considered to be a means of deciding which parts of the mechanism performed which actions and when.[SUP][8][/SUP] This is the essence of programmability.
Around the end of the 10th century, the French monk Gerbert d'Aurillac brought back from Spain the drawings of a machine invented by the Moors that answered either Yes or No to the questions it was asked.[SUP][9][/SUP] Again in the 13th century, the monks Albertus Magnus andRoger Bacon built talking androids without any further development (Albertus Magnus complained that he had wasted forty years of his life when Thomas Aquinas, terrified by his machine, destroyed it).[SUP][10][/SUP]
In 1642, the Renaissance saw the invention of the mechanical calculator,[SUP][11][/SUP] a device that could perform all four arithmetic operations without relying on human intelligence.[SUP][12][/SUP] The mechanical calculator was at the root of the development of computers in two separate ways. Initially, it was in trying to develop more powerful and more flexible calculators[SUP][13][/SUP] that the computer was first theorized by Charles Babbage[SUP][14][/SUP][SUP][15][/SUP] and then developed.[SUP][16][/SUP] Secondly, development of a low-cost electronic calculator, successor to the mechanical calculator, resulted in the development by Intel[SUP][17][/SUP] of the first commercially available microprocessor integrated circuit.

It won't help but will probably teach you to read what it says on the screen so next time you press buttons without understanding the consequences, you will at least still be able to copy and paste the big long repair instructions, rather than type it. :biggrin:

 

Ok then.....

If its a windows based machine (the ones that normally go wrong) try a system restore to a point in time just prior to your problem.

 

Alternatively, take it to someone who understands them.

Do you do all your own work on your car/bike/plumbing/electricity/sewage/washing machine? Cobble your own shoes?

It's someone's job to know more than you. Never figured out why people think they know all about computers. Very few are those who do. See it every day - I spend 2 days a week in a computer shop.

 

Right click / Copy/ Paste has always worked OK for me with XP Pro......Never a problem.......I don't understand the issue the OP has with his PC, unless the OS is corrupted, maybe.

AL.

 

Which it may well be.
The things are a law unto themselves.