For the last few weeks my Dell 8200 has on occaison acted rather strangely. If I was doing something, and tried to multitask by right clicking on an icon to context select a function, sometimes, but only sometimes, the damned computer would act strangely. It's hard to describe what happened, but mostly it would just sit there and think about what I was asking it to do, but not do it, or only get around to it after a really long wait. I think that sometimes I wasn't even necessarily multitasking when this would happen, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, I got sick of it today, and decided to defrag the hard drive whether the analysis of fragmentation said it needed to be defragged or not. (As it happened, it said a defrag was unecessary) I was thinking that the scandisk function built in might help matters too. So I did that, and then shut down after reading the report that said that everything was now in perfect shape after the defrag.

The computer rebooted ok tonight, but now none of the icons for programs work. Not on the desktop, nor under the start menu. I can open the two folders I have on the desktop, and look inside the folders in them, and I even got rid of some stuff into the trashcan and was able to empty it. The icon I have (in the Windoze XP folder of seldom used programs) for a game I sometimes play actually started the game up with the cd in the drive, after the game would not autoplay. But that seems to be the only .exe file I could execute. As it stands now, not even the shutdown icons work, although I can get to the menu with the 3 choices.

WTF did I do? Or is this related to the weird problem I was having earlier?
I don't recall how to go back to a "restore point" offhand, but I probably can't do it anyway, seeing as most of the icons don't work any more. :( :cry: :evil:

Any thoughts, or suggestions? (NO I can't afford a Mac.)

Is there Help and Support on start menu.Mine is In Help & Support

NOTHING was running earlier. I couldn't shut down properly, so I just shut off the power bar. The PC has been rebooted, and my brother is having a look at it. He got Norton to update, and we're scanning for viruses. He was also able to get IE 6 to run, but he noticed that the keyboard is not working. We checked, it is plugged in properly. So something is still amiss. :( :?

Nameless,

Do you have Powertools Xp? There is a program called TweakUI that can fix all your shortcuts.

I think MS puts it on the CD but it doesn't install -- you have to search it out and install it yourself. I'm not sure about this though.

Mah

Sorry Nameless. I have no suggestions. That is wierd that this is happening. Sounds like a reinstall may be in order. Let us know what happens either way. I sure am glad I got a Mac. I don't use it any but my wife thinks it's pretty. It does have some very good looking wallpaper that changes colors and stuff. Mac has a certain look to it. The only way I can describe it is..............clean. Everything on a Mac seems clean, crisp, clear. I have got plenty of security updates on it but nothing like Microsoft has dished out. So far the Mac has only crashed once in a year and it completely forgot we had installed a mail client to it so it was strange to log in to it and have it ask all of the same set up questions again. We lost the address book and all of the email but we set it back up and it has been fine ever since. I think it was a virus actually. We have virus scan for it too now. Back to you...good luck. Let us know.

Well now the stupid new computer is at least mostly running. My brother is doing some stuff he wants to get done, and is able to do most of it. He's on the internet, so that is working, but he said something earlier about not being able to update Adobe Reader.

He got a free trial version of Spy Sweeper for me, and it has found 39 frikken pieces of spyware that Ad Aware and Spybot have missed. Don't think that will help, but at the rate the damn PC seems to be recovering on its own, maybe all will be well after the next reboot. :roll:

(Well, I can dream can't I? :? )

I'm not feeling like talking to Dell Support tonight on the phone, so I'll call them tomorrow or the next day.

OUCH.
Who can u tell what is spyware and what not?

Each program has definitions of what is considered spyware, and what is not. Ordinary cookies for example are left alone, but "tracking cookies" are identified and you have the option of removing them. The classification of such files is up to the creator of the program. Ad Aware's team once had a long running argument with the people behind "Comet Cursor", who could not understand why their fine freeware with tracking spyware embedded in it was considered spyware, since they were giving away a little program in exchange for the right to spy on you. :roll:

Oh, and btw, I'm back on the new PC which has indeed gradually begun to behave itself again. I had to listen to some free advice on what to do when your PC starts screwing up, but as I'd never heard this bit of wisdom before, and it seems to have worked, the experience wasn't too bad. ;)

Oh, and here's the advice: If weird stuff starts to happen on your PC, try shutting down, unplugging the computer, and then press and hold the on/off button on the front of the case. This helps to clear the RAM of anything that might still be in it.

This trick I did not know.

Btw there is a new version of adaware6 out its called adaware 'se'

Is it free? Or is it the version you have to pay for? :?:

Still free buddy

http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10045910.html?part=69274&subj=dlpage&tag=button

Great prog! It picked up 71 tracking objects that SpyBot S&D missed. Thanks for the heads up !

Yeah AdAware is nice, but it doesn't always clean everything it says it does. Had to spend time over the weekend cleaning a spyware program MyFastAccess. AdAware found it and said it removed it, but nothing. Even went into Safe Mode to remove it. I had to unregister the dll and delete all the programs manually. Still a nice program tho.

Glider,
I am one of those folks that likes to reinstall Windows every 6 months or so to keep it running at top speed. I suggest that you do this. Here is why:
At work, I am the geek. If someone has a personal computer problem, I am the go to guy. This is funny because there is a whole department dedicated to this where I work. Anyways, a person there was having troubles with his Dell 8200. He wanted me to have a looksee. I did. The regestry was messed up. In my opinion, the easiest route to take was a clean install of Windows. Did it. He came back to me later saying that the computer was running MUCH better than it did out of the box from Dell.
In my opinion, the crap that comes on most pre-built PCs is not worth it. Delete your partitions, repartition, and do a clean install. Then YOU decide what programs you want on the computer. Not Dell. I think you will be much happier in the long run.

Of course, if you had a Mac, you would not have to worry about this....

Just for curiosities sake, anyone with OSX out there. Have you EVER had to reinstall the OS for ANY reason? Not trying to open the can again. Just curious.

I have OSX on my brand new iMac. I have not had to reinstall anything except as I mentioned above when it somehow completely forgot I had a functioning email program and I had to set it up again from step one. Easy enough but we lost our email and address book that one time it messed up.