good work! glad you got it all back to normal. and you are very welcome. remember that not just the pc has to be plugged into a surge protector, the router. modem, and telephone line if one is used or the cable itself if cable is used, the one I have has places to plug in a phone line, cable line, all the stuff that has to get plugged in to make the pc work, which is nice so when the weather gets bad I only have one switch to hit and one plug to unplug from the wall. Phone lines /dsl lines are great conductors for lightening. You can have a whole house surge protector added right at your service panel where your breakers are which is really nice.

Hmm, I had not read the whole MS page but basically you only need to follow the first 2 instructions. I have never had to use those other instructions myself. Remember that if you get flustered just click the Cancel button to get out of where you are. There is nothing to be afraid of when using System File Checker. You It simply goes through your computer checking all the operating system files and replaces those which are corrupt or missing. The need for the CD is so it can get the needed files to install for you. The slight downside is that it takes the computer back to when your particular CD was created which means you will be behind on security updates and possibly a service pack. No big deal there either, you simply go to the windows update site and the computer grabs whatever it needs. You are doing nothing wrong. Who knows why those files went missing. Perhaps/probably it was due to the power outage. You can of course extract and install each of those files if you wish to avoid using SFC. Follow the instructions here to do that for each file. You do not have to do them all at one time. Try one, see how it goes then do others as you feel up to the task.

I used to use it. When I had problems (connecting, connecting, connecting, etc, or authorizing, authorizing, authorizing, etc) I used to delete my account name and then add it back in and reboot. I have not used it in quite a while, and just went to try and open it. The icon came up on the middle of the page, and it flashed and said 'Welcome' several time b4 just going away. Is that what yours is doing? Sue

Yes! Get rid of Incredimail! Nothing personal but that is a very trustworthy program and the owners claim the rights to everything that you send via email using their program. Not many people read the EULA (End User License Agreement), and don't realize that if you are using Incredimail to send emails with new ideas/concepts etc., then Incredimail can claim copyright to your ideas etc. because you assigned them the copyrights when you agreed to use the program by clicking on "I Agree" when you installed it. Many of experts consider it Spyware as well. Yes, IncrediMail provides amusing, all-singing, all dancing, animated, colored, formatted, flashing, bleeping, blurping emails--- but with the certainty of tons of excess baggage riding along with the email; with the possibility of opening the door to malicious HTML-borne worms, viruses, and such; and with serious questions about who owns the content of the messages you send using their system. Others may have a more positive solution for you. Here is a link that might be useful: Incredimail Spyware & Copyright issues?