Start Button not functioning

[Bob..]

I think, in my naivety, I may have clicked on something to cause the malfunction as it did work immediately after download. Have clicked on everything possible to remedy but to no avail.

 

[Gideon]

Try pressing CNTRL-ALT-Del and choose Restart

 

[cavelcante]

Try pressing CNTRL-ALT-Del and choose Restart

No re-start choice!

 

[Trouble]

No re-start choice!

Ctrl + Alt + Delete should produce a screen with a power button down in the bottom right corner.
If you click on that, are you sure that restart is not one of the options

 

[cavelcante]

As suggested, I was able to restart but still the Start button on left click did not work. Also when I open the cover of my HP laptop, a Blue screen says your computer ran into problem and we will restart. It restarts and I have to log on.
Please help.

 

[Trouble]

It sounds to me, like there is something in your current power plan settings that is both preventing your computer from shutting down completely, as well as producing a Blue Screen upon its' attempting to recover from an energy saving state.
You might investigate by first configuring all you advance power plan settings for high performance and preventing things like hibernation as well as anything related to hybrid sleep.
After which you can then attempt to re-instate some of the power saving features and see if you can determine which of them may be responsible for your problem.
Additionally.....
Make sure you have all your drivers updated from the computer manufacturer to support your installed hardware (BIOS, Chipset, Storage Controllers, Video, Audio, Network, etc.,)