Start it up in safe mode... try to get rid of avast. Go to avast and find their uninstall tool.. use it ! What anti-virus did u have before... go to their website & find their uninstaller tool/program. Use it, then you can try again the Avast install, but i think i would stick in a different brand as avast already was conflicting with something... perhaps install the much loved Microsoft.com/security_essentials ... but only after using the uninstall tools from the others. If you cant get in and remove it safe mode... from that same f8 start up menu, choose Last known good configuration to go back one restore point.

Thanks to each of you for responding! I had a computer tech come to my house & he said that the new mouse I bought did need some software installation (altho the box said it did not). He did that for me & I was right back in business. He also went through my installations & deleted some old & unnecessary ones & my computer is faster now. $37.50 & worth every penny to me! Thnx again...

raven... thanks your continued help with links I should have looked for myself. That said, I do like "looking" on this forum due to the many helpful leaders. On first looking at the link you provided I'd concur that it is the same question/problem. But, it seems to get get complicated quickly. At first try I thought switching off the Firefox "caret browsing" would be my fix. It is not, but at least I know "F7" is how we turn it on and off. I sometimes push "F7" when I want to activate spell check, but it on automatically (or by my choice). I think F7 is the trigger for Outlook spell check on email. The point, if I have one, is I hit F7 a few times when in Firefox and may have done some switching of the caret.

found this info on other forums about a Dell latitude I will list all of the various ways that I saw; you can go to Control Panel > Mouse and select the Dell Touchpad tab. There should be a Device Select icon which will give you the option to turn off the touchpad and/or touchpad buttons. Alternatively, for those who want to turn off the pointing stick and/or pointing stick buttons, there are also options to disable or enable those. *Start-->Settings--Control Panel double-click mouse and there's an option there to disable the touchpad *"For all of you having trouble enabling or disabling the touchpad: Turn on or off the Fast Initialization button under hardware properties for the Touchpad. Fast Initialization = On, then reboot, you are now able to turn the touchpad On or Off from Mouse Properties Hope this helps, it was a PITA to figure out." *Just go to control pannel and double click on 'mouse'. There should then be a tab called 'Touch pad' and click on that. There should then be an option 'Tap off when typing' enable that and your problem should be solved. It also said that if you do not find those options there then it is possible your touchpad drivers are not installed which would allow you to make the changes. "If the control panel only shows things about a "mouse", the touchpad drivers are not installed. You could try www.synaptics.com for drivers." found this on the dell site *Customizing the Touch Pad and Track Stick You can use the Mouse Properties window to disable the touch pad and track stick or adjust their settings. Open the Control Panel, and then click Mouse. For information about the Control Panel, see Windows Help and Support Center. In the Mouse Properties window: * Click the Device Select tab to disable the touch pad and track stick. * Click the Touch Pad tab to adjust touch pad and track stick settings. Click OK to save the settings and close the window. I hope out of those maybe something will work