I forgot 1 thing..
How do I get rid of soluto? I read where it can be a problem..
Also .. when it doesn't give the option how do I install on E instead of C..
Dar

Sorry. I was trying to make a joke. My teenaged daughter keeps telling me I'm not funny. I guess I should listen to her.

BP,
Tell your daughter that as a joke it was very clever..
Dar

cpes_clean.exe is zone alarm removal tool.
Did you run it ? If not run it.. it will clean up zone alarm left overs .... uncheck that box that says always ask,, maybe it needs to run at boot .. and with that box checked,, it wont run at boot & you will get it at every start up.

Can you open your soluto and put everything back to normal start up ... i mean no delays?.. then it sounds like you need to unistall the soluto & all versions of java from your add/remove programs in control panel ...

and then go dowload/reinstall the latest Java.

If some of the items Soluto that were configured as delayed start up do not come back... You can search Soluto website and they have a small solution program to get most back running normal, hopefully all.

After Mikie's comments about possible issues with Soluto I simply went to the Add/Remove feature and removed it with no issues. Not that I had any problems with the program and had been running it for about 3 months.

As you are having problems and removed Zonealarm why bother to install another third party firewall? I would have stayed with the XP firewall while trying to sort these issues out. Yes, I know it is only a one way (incoming protection) but you have safety programs installed to protect you while the problems are being solved.

yes that image you posted is the tool you used that I provided you to remove Zone alarm if you did that and used it then you are done with it, if you did not run it then you would need to run it to fully remove ZA. once done you can delete it, see if you find it in add remove programs.

Well I would say that ZA was the probably cause if you removed it and now are booting at 4 mins instead of 20 so that is definitely progress. You definitely could have left off a firewall for a while and run the xp one it is not the best but does help as long as you run all your other security programs regularly and update. If you had a router in between your modem and the pc I would have said to do just that since the router has a built in hardware firewall but you don't.

For java try going to control panel then the java icon (coffee cup) double click then select update and try updating it.

Java said I had the latest update.. should I delete it?

I think taking soluto off has created problems.. It now takes 14 minutes to reboot.
I did a search & found SOLUTOService.exe-00ad5 in C/windows\prefetch

And for ZA in a folder..
Install document
2 dll files
toolbar.cfg
unwise

It is also slow at everything again..
When I deleted Soluto the other popup went away too.

At this point I think it would be simply easier to backup your critical data and do a fresh install of Windows. You're chasing ghosts with little or no chance of catching them.

>>> "spunbondwarrior
What U are saying is all Greek to me. If things get to that point I'll just take it in & start over." Hey Sugar!
I took no offense to anything you wrote about anything...
Linux users, especially those like me, the "self taught" types, seem to have a tendency to figure that every and anybody should "see the light" and see it right freakin now!
We were devoted Mac users from 1991, and quite accidentally we ended up with an almost free new WinTel machine back in 1998, but, my son my daughter and I had nothing but misery using MicroSoft OS's, so, looking for an alternative we found a copy of SUSE 5.2. We knew absolutely nothing about it so we bought this big fat book about it, and after a lot of trial and error and learning we one day had a system that would do whatever we wanted and we never even bothered to turn it off or disconnect it or defrag or anything to it.
Then, a few years later, I woke up one day from a 6 week and 6 day long nap and found I had to start learning every thing over again, and start learning everything from zero too. Fortunately for me, one day shortly there after my wife found this book called "Point and Click Linux" that came with a SimplyMepis CD.
Since I was determined to regain all I had lost, I used the book to start learning to read again, and so I learned to read and learn Linux at the same time.
Even though my wife is a state university "Director of Technical Services" I just could not then, nor now for that matter, get very far with learning the ins and outs of using MSWindows. It just doesn't make sense to me....
If you want to learn about Linux I guess that the best thing to do is go to your local bookstore and get you a Linux magazine with a CD or DVD included. Then, or maybe right now, go to the link and see what you find....
It will take you to what I consider to be the best general purpose search engine currently available. And a disclaimer, I am in no way shape or form involved with
"Yippy/Clusty/Vivisimo" other than as a big fan and regular user.
Once you learn just a very little bit about what you're doing under Linux, you will soon be running multiple browsers and DL'ing and trying out lots of software that you have absolutely no use for,
And, you too will be going for months at a time w/o ever experiencing any of the problems that all your MS using buddies seem to be having on a rather regular basis. I have left this machine on and online for as long as 8 months without ever an issue.
Be careful though.... you might end up with a strange sort of superiority complex and regularly manage to offend lots of folks, without ever intending to.
Not every one succumbs to that fate though.... Some of the most helpful, respected, and highly thought of G.W. MSWin resource/help types are running Linux at home and on their work (I am guessing that their servers are work related) computers.
Oh yeah, chances are pretty good that a lot of the PC repair folks you will ever come in contact with are Linux users, and believe it or not, they are probably using Linux to diagnose repair and recover data from their customers/clients corrupted systems.
Dang, I just fall off my soapbox.....
Good luck, and whatever OS you use, please do take the time to learn to use it safely and securely.
Oh yeah, I'm a Florida native, born and raised almost 60 years ago in the then vast emptiness that was way back then west Dade County. If everybody south of the lake died tomorrow, I'd be moving back the very next day. There or I'd be heading north to somewhere in central or western New York state, but, my wife of almost 30 years says we're staying here in Dixieland, and so, being the manly man that I am, I put my foot down hard and said "OK"

Here is a link that might be useful: Useful search results for learning Linux

Since I deleted ZA & Soluto I see parts of them are still in a folders on C drive. Can I safely delete everything in those folders?
Dar

yes you can

I think I goofed.. what's new :(
Since my solitaire game wouldn't load Java & when I tried to get it with the cup in control panel wouldn't work as it said I had the latest.. well I deleted java hoping that the cup in control panel would work but it doesn't. Where is the best place now to download Java.
Sorry I keep bothering everyone. Thanks for being so patient with me.
Dar

The link below is to the "Official" Java homepage/download pages site.

And this too, Java software, and lots of it:
"Your Ultimate Java Software Directory"
www.jfind.com/

I hope you find this useful......

Here is a link that might be useful: The

I agree reinstalling would have been a good idea, that is if you have the means to do it.

Here's a better Java Link,see below for it.

Clean out your temporary internet files and temp files Too!

Download TFC by OldTimer click Here to your desktop. Click the Save file tab, save it to the desktop. Then double click it to run it.

Double-clickTFC.exe to run it.

Note: If you are running on Vista, right-click on the file and choose Run As Administrator

TFC will close all programs when run, so make sure you have saved all your work before you begin

* Click the Start button to begin the cleaning process.
* Depending on how often you clean temp files, execution time should be anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or two.
* Please let TFC run uninterrupted until it is finished.

Once TFC is finished it should restart your computer. If it does not, please manually restart the computer yourself to ensure a complete cleaning.

Here is a link that might be useful: Java for you!

Zep,
I got TFC run & java is installed & running correctly.
Can TFC be used regularly to clean the computer?

Below was the biggest problem & I was afraid it wouldn't work but did.. I had to click continue several times
At least it worked..What can I do about that?
{{gwi:1504261}}
Thanks,
Dar

Yes you can use TFC Regularly. It cleans Temp files and Temp Internet files only. Does not clear cookies & History so you would want to run a program like Ccleaner for that.

That unresponsive script error above, does it always say the same thing? What browser does it happen in, Mozilla Firefox or IE 7? What are you doing when you get the error? at a certain web site, or does it happen on a reboot? tell me more about it.

Yes, it always says the same warning.. Gee I wish I had paid more attention when I get..it seems like it is mostly when I am downloading & installing. When I click continue it goes on but the popup comes back.. I don't know how I really should respond to it. No I don't think it ever happens at a reboot. It can happen on any site...just like it happened with installing Java.. I hadn't done that before.
I just noticed.. I have that popup on here twice..2 different sites but they say exactly the same thing.
I use FireFox. My son had me install Google Chome but what little I used it I didn't care for it so I only used it a couple day.
I don't know if this helps or not.
Dar

When I get that message, I usually click stop script. The script to which it refers is java script on the webpage you're visiting. It probably has a problem of some sort and isn't going to finish.

that is a silverlight error code some sites use silverlight now and not all computers have silverlight installed, MS is trying to push everyone to move to silverlight, so it could be that the site has something in silverlight and you do not have the silverlight to be able to run it so it gives that error. It is similar to Adobe Flash.
Silverlight
that tells you about it

I have not installed it on any of mine

sugar_fl-
I just looked at this huge thread for the first time. Here is what I see:
1. You have a fairly old computer that has never had any maintenance work done on it.
2. You have an accumulation of errors and accumulated crap that occurs for many reasons.
3. You're getting a lot of detailed advice from helpful folks here, but your computer skills are limited.
4. In response to the advice, you are spending huge amounts of times fiddling with your computer looking for one or more needles in the haystack.

At his stage, I think you need to save all of your important files (photos, documents, etc.) to a CD, a thumb drive, or an external hard drive and then: 1) reformat the existing drive and reinstall the operating system, and then reinstall your important programs, or 2) buy a new computer...which you are going to have to do pretty soon anyway. You tried valiantly to fix this, but that computer has so many problems that I'm not sure that a tweak here and there is going to resolve anything.

Finally, I'm betting that you have some important stuff on your computer that you wouldn't want to lose and that exists only in that one place. Before the hard drive gets messed up with these attempts at fixing it, or before it dies a natural death, the next thing you should do is make back up copies of anything you don't have saved elsewhere.

1) reformat the existing drive and reinstall the operating system, and then reinstall your important programs

I think I said that 20 messages ago. At some point you're wasting more time trying to fix a problem than you would just starting from scratch.

agree and at that time I would make sure that drive is partitioned how you want it to be, or no partitions just use the full drive. The prices are coming down for the big holiday sales too so a good time to be on the look out for deals.

mike-
After those twenty more messages were posted -- where the hunt for the elusive Bandersnatch continued unabated -- I thought it was time to re-raise the issue, but I do give you credit for being the first to suggest it. It was an impressive effort by a determined band of techies, but it looks like this has passed the point of diminishing returns. In fact, I suspect if you added up the time the OP has put in on this, plus all the commenters, and valued it at $5 an hour, it would be enough to buy a pretty nice computer.

I have been very hesitant responding to these post for fear of saying the wrong things.
Yes, I don't have a lot of knowledge but if all of us were as good as the people here there would be no need for this forum. I am very thankful for this forum & all U have done to help me as it has kept me going through the years. You are basically all the help I have. Yes, I have learned a lot from it.
I have much more time than I have money. I have never been one to have to have the best.. couldn't afford it if I wanted to. I do like for what I have to half way work.
I do have a lot backed up..I have so many picture of my Great-grand-twins I didn't even try to back them all up.
If I have wasted anyones time on here I can only say I am sorry & I ask U to forgive me.
Another BIG thanks for all the help.
Dar

I'm a big fan of regular backups. You don't want to lose those pictures, and hard drives sometimes fail, so you should back them up ASAP. Very large external drives are available for small amounts of money. I recently bought a 1 terabyte external drive for a laptop for around $100. drives that need to be plugged in are generally less expensive than ones that are portable. Since your computer is older, you can probably back up your entire drive several times on a 1 TB drive, or you could get a smaller drive for around $50. The "smaller" drive would still probably have more than enough space to backup your current drive(s).

sugar-
I didn't intend for you to think that you were wasting anyone's time. Nobody is forcing anyone to post here...people generally do it because they want to help. It's just that I saw people posting helpful, but fairly complex, technical fixes for you to try, and I could tell that: 1) some of the fixes were hard to accomplish even if you were very technically competent, and 2) they were eating up lots of your time without any improvement.

Even if it wasn't clear, I was trying to be helpful, too. I wasn't trying to stop people from helping you, but I thought a reality check was warranted. Your computer has enough complex problems that many of us would have trouble fixing it if it was sitting in front of us. It's pretty clear that all the fixes others have suggested haven't helped, and it seemed like it had reached a point where it would be a waste of your time trying even more random fixes.

I understand that you might not be able to buy a new computer, but maybe you can find a friend who could help you backup your files and reinstall the operating system. I think you are at the point where something that radical is needed. Or maybe you could hire a computer guru to do this for a lot less than buying a new computer. Good luck whatever you do.

BP,
A lot of the pictures are in the mail (Thunderbird) Would a external drive backup mail too? It seems to me if there is problems in this computer... backing it all up & then putting it into another computer the problems would just be transfered from one computer to the other.. I am going to look into an external drive. I may have to yell for help with it as I have never even seen one.

kudzu9,
I don't know of anyone here to help me other than a computer shop.
I believe some of the things we did has made it run better.
It still is slow rebooting. It seems the shutting down part is the slowest & I do close out everything before starting. I have more time than anything else so I will live with that for now.
Thank again,
Dar

Dar-
If your pictures are "in the mail" I assume that means you go into your email program to look at them? Can you look at them on your computer without going into your email program? If you want to really keep them safe and accessible, you would copy all those pictures onto a separate drive.

The important thing to remember is that your computer is slow because there are problems with the operating system, not with the files. The files you should back up, like photos and memos, are just things that are stored on the computer, independent of how the operating system functions.

What a number of us are suggesting is that you have an unhealthy operating system and some day you are going to have either an inoperable computer or a failed hard drive. If you wait too long to get important files off that computer and on to something safer, like a new external hard drive, you will lose everything that's important.

No computer is going to last forever, so you have a choice: 1) back up your important files and photos now so you still have them when the inevitable crash occurs, or 2) don't back them up and lose them. You could purchase a good external hard drive for $60-80, copy what's important onto it, and then use it to transfer these files to another computer some time in the future when your existing computer fails.

One last thing: You said a few posts ago that you have a lot of photos backed up...but what does that mean? Do you have them saved some place else that's not on this computer?

Microsoft has a 'Fix It' program in BETA that you download and install different modules that you might think sound revelant .. might be worth a try to see if it turns up any info.

Think I might run it in the not automatic fix mode. See what it finds on performance mainly. Handfull of choices, fairly simple to understand program.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://fixitcenter.support.microsoft.com/Portal

I am interested in an xternal hard drive.. what brand would U recommend for an XP computer. I don't quite understand it though. Can I back up everything including the operation system.. I kinda doubt it..That's what I meant by backing up problem. I hope it will backup programs I installed & can be used if put in another computer doing nothing else.

I can see the pictures in mail but do have to go into the mail. I can save them to the desktop. I guess I could put them in a folder & put the folder in the X-Drive. I have mailed some to other online mail programs but not sure how safe they are there. I have a online storage I pay $19 a year for which I have some favorites in. I have quite a bit of family pictures there too. I have a free one also but I have had bad luck with free sites.. they go down. I also have quite a few printed.
I just need something that isn't too complicated.
What External would be the easiest for me to work with?
I wouldn't mind ordering it on line.
BP,
I wouldn't mind paying $100 for one.
Thanks,
Dar

sugar-
You don't want to or need to backup your operating system since it's got problems. When you get another computer some time in the future, it will have its own, functional operating system. All you need to worry about is getting all of your personal files such as photos and documents off the computer to a safe place. You don't need to back up the operating system to do this. The things you have located at an online storage site are safe and not affected by your computer problems.

First, go into your email and download all the photos that you want to keep into one or more folders on your Desktop. Then plug the external hard drive in to your computer with the USB cable that will come with it. After you plug it in, there will be a simple set of instructions that pop up to walk you through this backup. You just need to go into all the areas of your computer that have these files and copy them over. You could also download the stuff you have stored online to the new drive so they would be readily accessible. Depending on how many files and photos you have, you could even store them on an inexpensive flash drive rather than buying a hard drive. The point is: get them all off that computer to a safe storage location. The external hard drive is nothing more than a big, electronic filing cabinet, and you are going to load it up with everything that you want to keep safe.

Here is a link to the 320 GB external hard drive I use...which I assume will be much larger than all of your storage needs. You can get it online for $60.

Here is a link that might be useful: Toshiba Canvio

I bought a 1 TB drive at Office Max last night for $55. I'm pretty sure it's on sale for this week only.

bpgreen-
Sounds like a good deal if it's a reliable brand. What is it?

Sorry. I thought I included that info. It's a hitachi.

Sure not for you, Dar. Thanks Kudzu for clarifying.

I guess 320 GB should be enough to hold everything & have some for future use. I just don't want to have to worry about space again.
I think I probably know the answer but will ask to be sure .. can a program be loaded into a Xternal drive & work from there.. what I'm saying is can I move programs like my card making ones & use them as before. Would it be better to move them to drive E? Will they work if I move them to E? Is it that simple? What would I have to do to make them operable in drive E or an Xternal?
BP,
I doubt I'll get to Office Max for awhile since I don't drive & it is across town. My best best is ordering off the net. I guess I'll learn to use it after I get it. BTW can I sit this on top of the tower?
I got quite a few pictures of my 2 1/2 year old G-GrandTwins yesterday..On Facebook so they should be safe.
Thanks,
Dar

"I guess 320 GB should be enough to hold everything & have some for future use. I just don't want to have to worry about space again."

I guess it's all relative. My laptop had a 160 GB drive in it so I made an image and installed a 640 GB drive. I use a 1 TB (1000 GB) drive as a backup for that. My netbook has a 160 GB drive and I use a 500 GB drive as a backup.

I could probably fill any drive I got.

"I think I probably know the answer but will ask to be sure .. can a program be loaded into a Xternal drive & work from there.. what I'm saying is can I move programs like my card making ones & use them as before. Would it be better to move them to drive E? Will they work if I move them to E? Is it that simple? What would I have to do to make them operable in drive E or an Xternal?"

You can run some programs from an external drive, but some programs will not run that way. The ones that will work will run more slowly from an external drive. It's best to run programs from your local drive except for programs that you don't use often.

You usually can't just move a program from one drive to another and get it to work. Some programs will let you do that, but not very many any more.

"BP,
I doubt I'll get to Office Max for awhile since I don't drive & it is across town. My best best is ordering off the net. I guess I'll learn to use it after I get it. BTW can I sit this on top of the tower?"

It can sit wherever you have room for it as long as the cable will reach the USB port on the PC

sufar_fl... I have been reading this with great interest. I have the same computer as you and I have never put service pack 3 on it, I was told not to and I have never had any problems whatsoever (with the help from this forum). Maybe that would be another thing to get rid of?

mary-
While it's true that a relatively small group of people have had problems with it, they are outnumbered by the people who failed to put it on and had problems. Operating system software is never perfect and is always getting updated. SP3 is an important update that closes a number of security holes and can improve performance and stability. If you don't want to do install it, be aware that you are taking a calculated risk, and possibly increasing the long-term chances of performance problems or exposure to malware. Although XP is becoming an older operating system and it's difficult to buy a new computer with it installed, anyone who bought a computer within the last couple of years with XP as the OS likely got one with SP1, SP2, and SP3 already installed. I've heard the stories about Service Packs, but I've never known anyone who had a problem with their computer by installing one. It's not my business what you do, but I wanted to get an alternate opinion inserted about whether installing SP3 is a good thing or not. Here's a little more background on this if you want to understand the situation better and steps that can be done for a safe install....

Here is a link that might be useful: SP3

This is a one day only deal. 1 TB external drive for $59.99 + $5 shipping.

It started at midnight Central time on 11/20 and will end at midnight (or when they run out). It's a different Hitachi than the one I have, but this one includes backup software.

Hitachi external drive at sellout woot

I have seen many computers with SHOCKWAVE on them come to a crawl. Uninstall that and see what happens. Something else I've seen many times.... when a process is looking for a specific server that is not available, especially during boot up, the computer takes forever to finish booting. The same goes if there are way too many icons and files on the desk top. I'm sure there are many products out there that can help but I found one that is a real work horse with fantastic customer support and tried and true from my own uses, when many others failed. The name is "FIX-IT" made by Avanquest and it's available anywhere (even WalMart)for about 30 bucks. It fixes registry errors, unused or unneeded programs and routines. It also allows you to look at every process on your machine and gives suggestions as to what should remain in startup, what is user choice and also identifies suspicious routines and files that load during startup. This is very similar to what OWBIST mentioned many responses earlier. "FIX-IT" will also defrag the registry and make "set points" so if the computer gets screwed up at a later date, you can go back to the latest set point and get everything back up and running. I've used their rescue CD in computers that were dead in the water and with their utilities, get them back up and running. The virus and malware protection is also top drawer. I've never been a fan of reformatting a hard drive when there are problems since the formatting itself is generally not a problem. Not saying it is wrong, just not my preference.

BP I haven't been here in a couple of days..of course that sale is over.
I was getting stuff off the desktop & made a folder called "desk top" Now when I click on the icon I end up with this folder rather than the actual desk top. I believe I have made myself some new problems moving icon.. How do I get out of this problem? How do I get myself in such problems LOL
A lot that I moved are shortcuts.. maybe I should have just left the desktop alone. They are on drive E..& thumb drive.
How can I get the desktop Icon take me to the blue desktop?

I have a total of 15GB thumb drives & have a lot saved.. have about 1/4 of the E-mail pix on them.. soon as I can I'll move the rest. I'm not saving anything I have a disk for. I still want to get an Xternal drive.

I haven't had a chance to look into "fix-it" but my biggest fear is what to with what it finds. I believe that is what Mikie was talking about.
When I had a computer with Windows 95 I remember having EXE files on the desktop.. I had all kinds of problems till I got them off the desktop & don't keep EXE there anymore.
Dar

How do you get yourself into these problems? Because you have a problem and are trying to fix it rather than ignore it or dump your problem on someone else. I find that to be very admirable. The good thing about this is you will be learning a lot in the process of getting things back on track. The down side is it is going to take a little bit of time if we do it here. Your are very lucky because there is a lot of experience her and, super people willing to help.

There should be no fear of what to do with what fix-it finds if you decide to go that route. They offer several bits of information as to what found information does, and a suggestion of what you should let fix-it do, to fix your computer. You can undo anything fix-it does, with the click of a button. If you go to do anything that will screw things up, fix-it will tell you.

If anything in any of the steps does not agree with what you see on the screen, don't continue and get back to us and let us know what the discrepancy is. There are several reasons why you might not be getting to the desk top you are used to and rather than a bunch of mumbo jumbo and jargon, we'll start with the simplest reason first.

From what I gather at this point, you have multiple issues that are not necessarily "Computer Problems". To best help you get on track using a forum like this, I suggest we take one issue at a time. There are several ways to skin a cat so I am going to use what I know will get you to where you want to be. Of course, if you know a faster way that works for you, no problem, as long as we both get to where we want to be. We don't know what you know so if we describe a step that you well know, it is not to insult your intelligence or belittle you, it's just to get you where you need to be in a step by step manner.

1....The folder that YOU created named "desk top", rename it to "My Icons" and do so without the start and end quotes. The folder you created, from what you indicated here, has a space between the words "desk" and "top". That's the one you want to rename.

2....Click on the START button at the bottom left of you computer screen. Look for "My Computer" and click on that.

3....RIGHT click Local Drive (C:) In the left column at the top, you should see "Desktop" with no space between desk and top. Looking down a little further, you should see C: with a plus next to it. Click on that plus. When it expands, look down the list and you should see the renamed directory "My Icons" that you did previously. Click on that and in the right column, everything you moved should be listed there.

4....At the top of this window click on EDIT and when the menu drops down, click on SELECT ALL. Everything in the right column should become highlighted, usually in blue.

5....Take your mouse pointer over to the highlighted column click down on the LEFT mouse button and HOLD IT DOWN. While holding it down, drag everything over to the left column and up to the "DESKTOP", at the top of the left column. You will see the DESKTOP change color when you are on it and at that point, let up on the mouse button. Make sure you are on the DESKTOP name and that it highlights because if you don't, you may move everything into another directory, compounding the issue!!!

Everything should now be back the way it was before you moved your desk top. If everything is back to what you are used to, we'll take the next step. My particular next step is going to ask for a list of everything in the task manager under the tab "PROCESSES". Do a "Ctrl" "Alt" "Delete". When the task manager pops up, click on the "Processes" tab. After you enter this tab, hover your pointer over the words "User Name". This will be the name of one of the columns. You have to hover over the actual words. Left click that and you will see everything organize itself. If you could then get us a list as it appears on your screen, we can work on the next steps.

I have to go on an errand so it might be some time before I get back to you, I live in a rural area. Someone else here may pick up where I left off, I have no problem with that. The beauty of this particular forum is many knowledgeable people willing to help.

hmmmm, what I do, kill the thread?

Maryland,
I think I killed it.. LOL
You explained things very well.. I knew how to do most of it already.
I got down renaming the folder but can't find it.. I believe on the computer it is named desktop with no space.. bad move.
I can't find it anyway to rename it.
The folder that that is brought up when I click the icon for desktop works fine... it is fully functional & in some ways more convenient.. I also know it isn't like it should be & may cause more problems.
When I do what U say in step 3 I don't see what U said.
I'm about ready to save the rest on here & use it as is till it completely goes down & start over. Except for slow reboot it isn't running too bad.. Everyone has been so kind & helpful.
Thanks Everyone,
Dar

something very important here, you mention you are saving the shortcuts to your flash drive, that will do nothing for you, shortcuts are just that a place holder. There is no reason to save shortcuts to your flash drive. You want to save the actual thing the shortcut points to.

(i save desktop shortcuts... most are web links)

If you're still looking for a deal on an external drive, Office Max has a 1TB drive going on sale for $49.99 tomorrow (may be 1 day only) and Office Depot has a 2 TB drive for $89 tomorrow and Saturday.

If you feel up to it, use the search function to look for "desktop". It will at least let you know where it is and you can drag it back to where it traditionally belongs.

Maryland,
I have done a search several times.. there is several folders named "desktop" One of them has the same things in it that is on the blue desktop & also in the one that comes up when I click the desktop icon. Several of the "desktop" folders have RES on the folder & REGKEY if I click on it.

Let me try to explain... The shortcuts I moved were the one that took me to programs. The ones I saved on the thumb were so I can remember ALL I have. I know they won't work from there. I haven't saved anything I have a disk for..I'll just reinstall them. Some on the E-drive I had to move back as they didn't work. My games are on the net so bookmarks take care of them.

Since I don't drive Off the net is my best best...just don't know which one to order. It is funny.. I haven't looked at Amazon but have looked other places.. the other day I got a E-mail from Amazon with lots of drives.. all were way over $100. They have to have a cookie on me.

I also am not getting the Avast update voice & popup saying I have an update but when I check it is up to date.

I believe the more I try to fix things the more I mess up.