Drag & Drop not working in Windows 11

Symptom

Files no longer drag: grabbing with the mouse does not move the object, the cursor shows “not allowed”, and dragging a file into another window, an email or onto the taskbar does not work. Copy and paste work as usual.

Typical causes

UAC (User Account Control) fully disabled — as a rule, the result of aggressive tweaks or manually disabling all elevation prompts. Drag & Drop depends on UAC mechanisms, and when it is fully disabled, Drag & Drop in Windows 11 breaks. How UAC works and its default parameters — in the settings article.

Fix in BoosterX

1. Open BoosterX → the “Fixes” section (in the left menu).
2. In the search, type “Drag & Drop”.
3. Open the card “Drag & Drop does not work in Windows 11” and click “Fix”.
4. Restart Windows.

The fix enables UAC and the file virtualization service and restores Drag & Drop. The trade-off: protection against unnoticed elevation is reduced — consent prompts may not appear. If maximum protection matters more, after the fix restore the default UAC parameters (see below) and check that dragging still works. BoosterX can be downloaded from the official website boosterx.org.

How to verify

Drag a file from File Explorer into the window of another application — for example, a browser or an email: the object should be moved and “attached”. Then try dragging an icon onto the taskbar.

Manual alternative without BoosterX

Open Control Panel → User Accounts → User Accounts → Change User Account Control settings and move the slider to the default position (the second from the top). Click OK and restart the PC, then check dragging.

If it did not help

If dragging has not been restored after the fix and the manual steps, check the Windows event log entries matching the time of the problem — incident analysis is helped by EventX. If the BoosterX fix did not help or the problem returned, write to support and attach the error text.

Last checked: 2026-09-20. Full catalog of fixes.