Mouse will not activate links

Hello,

My mouse has suddenly seemed to stop activating links in any web page. I have a wireless Logitech mouse, HP Pavilion laptop with Windows XP O/S. The problem precisely is this. I oepn a web page, let's say Hotmail. I click on an email to open ie when hovering over the link the pointer changes from a pointer to a hand, left click and the email opens. However, when I've finished with that email, close it and try to open another one, the pointer stays as a pointer and does not change into a hand and therefore I can't open anything. The only way I can get it to become active again is to click on another open window, then return to the original window and the pointer starts working again. It's really annoying.