THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!! Your advice worked and my computer is almost back to normal. Goldie: that was my first thought, too (LOL)! Mary Lu, it wasn't you at all; just me trying to do too much :~) I basically just followed Camp56 and Ideefixe's instructions and it worked! I can't thank you both enough for taking the time to walk me through it!! Rose: the thumb drive idea is a good one for future problems. I never would have thought of that. Thanks! Olychick: you know, I'm embarrassed to say that I had no idea about that Restore feature. In the past, whenever I've had a problem DH has fixed it for me. I need to be more proactive. Allison: thanks for those recommendations. WIP: yes, they use a small outside IT firm; nobody in-house except DH. I was going to call them next if I couldn't find a solution here. Oakley: you're kidding?!? I made a mistake earlier saying that I deleted Norton, it was MacAffee, which I've had for quite a while. It ran every day, scanning for problems but never found a one . . . and I KNEW something was wrong before all of this. That's why I was looking for anti-virus programs. Hmmmmm. Graywings: Thanks! I'd forgotten that GW even had a computer forum and had never checked it out. But, I will definitely keep it on mind for future problems. Chickadee: Haha . . . that's for sure! DH would flip out if I screwed up his computer! Camp56: thanks for mentioning that about the two programs. That's good to know as I wasn't sure. Thanks again for all your help. It worked!!!! Lynn

I don't think 6 years is bad for computer life. Technology changes so fast that many change computers often even if nothing is wrong with the old one. But, have you had the computer looked at? See what it would take to have it fixed? We have a desktop system that is very rarely used. Hubby has a laptop and I have a netbook. I love my netbook (small laptop). I like Apple products. We both have Iphones and I use an Ipad. However, at work we use Dell and MS programs. I also do hubby's contract work bookkeeping, some of which goes on to the accountant. The accountant uses MS. So, no Mac for us. My dad is crazy over his! I don't think though that you have to go with a Mac to avoid virus problems. You don't open email attachments unless you know what they are - right? I'd be curious as to where you're picking up the virus.

I didn't really intend to go into routine maintenance and the defrag is a good maintenance item to do occasionally and should be done after a disk check. If you have bad sectors on your hard drive it will complicate the defrag and it'll cause performance problems too. Other maintenance, clean out old files, sort so you can find things, organize your computer, wipe the dust off it, and other stuff! Jodi, that's a great analogy on defrag. I'm gonna "Berle" it! ;) alisande, static electricity is way over-hyped. If you're in a dry climate and walk on the carpet, yes you can get some static sparks. And yes, you need to be careful when in the computer. There are static leashes that some swear by, but I never use them. If you know what you're doing, you're fine and the leash won't prevent other problems. When you open the computer UNPLUG IT FIRST. This should be a no-brainer, but... Then pull the screws if so equipped and open it up. If you've walked around a dry room on carpet, touch the metal case or the back of the power supply before sticking your hand in there to discharge yourself. Using a vacuum won't generate static electricity. Incidently, when using the vacuum, get the big chunks out first then turn it to blow to loosen up underneath the board and in the power supply. If your computer is really packed with lint you should use compressed air or else open the power supply. Be careful of the capacitors in there... FWIW, I don't recommend keyboard covers except in rare situations. Do you REALLY HAVE to eat cookies and crackers like a slob, right over the keyboard? The occasional lint, dust, dirt and crumbs can be removed by turning it over, tapping gently and a spurt of compressed air occasionally. Keyboard covers break, crack, get hard and somehow spending $30 on a $5 keyboard doesn't seem to make much sense to me. I even know people who put plastic bags over the keyboard because they insist on using them as a plate. Considering how full of bacteria a keyboard is to start with and people having to have food on it on top of it... eeewwwwwww... I find that disgusting! LOL Set the computer aside and eat for 5-10 minutes. And wipe the keyboard occasionally and do your phone too. They're dirtier than your toilet seat, did you realize that? Now go wash your hands and enjoy your computer! :)

as breenthumb said you must have the easylist along with adbolck plus on your firefox to be rid of all of the ads. you can get the easylist here EasyList once you have ad block plus on your firefox simply click on that link and select add easylist to adblock plus. Anytime there is an ad that is visible there will be somewhere along it's edge a little pop up tab that says block just click that and you can then block that type of ad also, this is a feature of ad block plus. Thanks for posting the actual screen shot of this paint ad, upon seeing it, it is very obvious that it is a part of the ad and the options to select your colors is also a part of the ad, one of the most obnoxious ad's I have ever seen. So apparently firefox, adblock plus and easylist do stop this ad since I had no idea what it looked like. When things like this crop up it is always most helpful to give every detail about it so that not as much guessing has to take place in trouble shooting. Once the screen shot was shown it was quite obvious, but for those of us that do not see them we had no idea it was part of a paint ad till that info was finally provided.