I am confused by the question. Are you saying when you select an object and then left click on the move, scale, or rotate tool buttons in the toolbox to the left of the screen the manipulator does not appear?

I can't see how that can happen. If it was a mouse problem and it was not seeing you left clicking on the toolbox tool icons then I would think that you would be unable to left click on the object to select it.

Can you create a polygon cube and then deselect it by clicking anywhere in the screen but not on the object. Then press 5 for shaded mode. Then reselect the object by left clicking on it. Then with the object selected left click on the move, rotate, and scale tools.

Grab a screen capture with the object selected and the mouse pointer over the tools as you are clicking. Also you should get a tooltip popup as you hover the mouse pointer over the tool (you can see the tooltip popup briefly before I select the rotate tool in the vid capture below).

So that I am clear on your problem I made this screen vid capture. This is what you are saying you cannot do...

https://s181.photobucket.com/albums/x...nt=project.flv