have you checked to see if your UAC settings have been changed? control panel user accounts check there to see if your admin account settings have changed. I assume you have rebooted a few times to see if that would help? Do you also get this message when trying to use IE? I would check to make sure you do not have read only set on your files

ravencajun, thanks for the links. I was not aware that Windows came with that. I will check it out tonight and see what can I do but, one question as I am not sure this solution will help me... The "problem" that I had originally resulted in these issues: (a) my desktop display switched to a gray screen background instead of a picture I had taken, (b) a few icons on the desktop were giving me problems trying to activate the programs, (c) Outlook is now looking for some weird file called outlook.pst, cannot find it and it will not start. I have reset my background picture but will your suggestion help with the outlook problem? cg, interesting points. But that is what I am trying to do now a days: restore to a full back up point. I too assumed it would be less complicated to do a full restore than an incremental one but I was wrong! I like your idea of using the software for a backup of the external drive itself too. But that will be after I can get around this nagging problem. The date I am backing out to is all the way in September, when I bought Acronis and the very first time a full backup was done. Luis

Check that the mentioned PST file is at the location mentioned.

Here's an update on my problem - which is now half solved:) My ISP tech entered a command yesterday to save all mail to computer/machine only and that has resolved the sent mail issue. Emails are appearing as they should in the Sent file. Similar attempts did not correct the issue of deleted emails not showing in the delete/trash file. This morning I looked into Windows files and folders troubleshooter and installed a little program called FixIt - I have no idea how well this really works. FixIt reported a corrupt Delete file and a View setting that was 'lost or incorrect', asked if it could repair, I said Yes, and it prompted successfully accomplished. But nothing changed. Currently Sent folder is normal - and that's huge. As for Deleting items, if I click the X, the email leaves In or Sent boxes. It does not show up in Deleted items. If I use the Outlook search function to look for it, I can find it. If I click on Empty Deleted Item Folder and search again, its gone. I can drag mail from In and Sent boxes into the Deleted items at left and they do stay there then, and the number count increases appropriately with each dragged email.