Owbist, the laptop is a Dell that I bought from their Website and just had things put on it that I wanted. Thanks for the comment. ravencajun: This laptop did come with Vista and was upgraded to Windows 7. Just a little while ago, the computer gave me a message saying: Windows must be activated today". Then it gave me an option to reenter the product key. However, the product key that I have is invalid and I do not know what the product key is that maybe came with the Windows 7, as a computer person did this updrade to Windows 7 for me as a favor. Does Windows 7 come with a different Product Key? There were no papers involved. I can get in touch with him maybe tomorrow, but in the meantime, what is going to happen to my laptop, if it says this must be done today?? Thanks again for responding. I'm using my son's laptop to send this message and am backing up everything on my laptop just in case. Any comment on what I should do now? Sorry, I don't know that much about the operation of the laptop.

You could go back to XP by saving all you data files on external media. And then, the fast way to wipe your disk is to reformat it and that probably is a good move to start over with a clean hard drive. But before you wipe everything, check to see what copy of XP you have. If it is the upgrade version, it will not install on a clean machine. It looks for an earlier version of Windows before it will install. Maybe, as in earlier versions, you can get it to go by inserting a CD that has an earlier version of Windows. After XP has been installed, you will have to install all your software and get updates. XP itself will need at least 30 to 60 MB of updates. You will need to load in your data files as needed. There is an issue you should consider. In the not too distant future, you may wish to upgrade to Windows 7 bypassing Vista. (I plan to do this.) An upgrade from XP to Win7 can not be done directly. A clean, freshly formatted disk is required. As I understand it, you can perform a direct upgrade from Vista to Win7. A cautionary note about memory sticks (thumb drives). These may not be dependable as permanent storage devices. I wathced the development of these devices and noted that they contained a lithuim cell to hold the states of the storage cells also known as a "keep alive" cell. At that time, those cells were rated for a 10 yr life. After that, the stick may go bad. I do not know the construction and limitation of newer memory sticks. That limitation could have been extended. Research your memory stick before you depend on it for long term storage. For my use, I transfer all my camera pictures to other media and I advise to use new sticks for new data. I consider thumb drives as a temporary storage. Sticks older than 4 to 5 years old should be tossed and replaced with new ones. The price of these devices have reduced enough to make replacement practical.

Just saw your post about this. I was going to suggest going to: Start> Control Panel> Folder Options> View Tab> then Checking "Show Hidden Files, Folders and Drives". Guess you beat me to the answer. There are a couple of things I do when doing a Fresh install and that is one of them. The other in the same Folder Options Window is to Set it to Single Click on the General Tab. I also set the Mouse so that hitting the Ctrl Key with put a circle around the Mouse Cursor. Start> Control Panel> Mouse> Pointer Options Tab> then Check "Show the Location of the Pointer when I press the Ctrl Key" . Anyway, glad you figured it out, sorry I'm so late with the answer!

'You should maybe slow down in continuing to give advice about things you don't seem to know much about.' Excuse me? Maybe you should stop telling people not to post on the internet, especially when you seem to be grossly uninformed on the nature of infections and what hackers' intents are in trying to get onto computers. 'The likelihood of sustaining a credit card loss, inconvenience, or identity theft solely from online financial and banking activity from home is very, very, very low. ' Who said anything about 'solely from online financial/banking activity?' You. Nevertheless, our business is big cybercriminal business. That aside, viruses and hackers are most definitely after credit card information and such. What else do you think they are after? Just like to follow us around to see what we are up to? There is an entire industry and force of non-profit vigilantes focused on combating hackers and malware. Cyber criminals are after our personal information. It's a fact, not an infrequent occurrence or minor nuisance. It is big business. Read up before you pose as an authority. 'From what I've read, the risks that do exist have almost nothing to do with custom apps that many use or vulnerabilities in browser software exploited by bad guys in other ways and for other purposes.' What does this even mean? Custom apps? We are talking about updating Windows. I mentioned there are security issues around not keeping Windows updated - rather than it simply being a marketing ploy encouraging people to upgrade. If you are doing transactions online, it is prudent to keep your software updated. You can also lose personal photos and files to ransom ware these days if you don't back them up. Browser vulnerabilities are not an issue? Really?? Please, do let companies like Google, Norton, ESET, Bleeping Computer and all the other companies know that it's not an issue. They are wasting an enormous amount of time, money and other resources combating cybercriminals. Good grief. I don't even understand what your argument is. I'm not sure you do either.