I'm losing my cookies...

I hope you find a way to fix that! I don't really know anything about that kind of thing. But, I could ask my comp. apps teacher when I get to his class! I'll let you know when I know something.

I like your avatar! It's awesome!

First, have you tried rebooting your machine? Taking it all the way down, and then restarting it.

I hope it's not, but it sounds like one of those nasty viruses.

I'd suggest trying to do a system restore. If you have one relatively recent, before the problem started, that may do it.

Otherwise, it's very possibly a virus.

She_wulf said:

When you do a system restore, what all do you lose?

Unfortunetly, I "inherited" my machine and don't have some of the software disks so I've been avoiding any updates to the OS, etc.

I backed up my doc files to my website storage (online FTP area), but am waiting to "reboot" until I make another duplicate of my docs on my external (removable) drive storage.

I don't know if it is a virus. I'm "protected" by the purchased AVG and Spybot and am running through a firewall. I'm thinking it was Spybot deleting some preference files, but not certain.

Amy

Click to expand...

Okay, back up your files and turn off your computer completely.....Windows needs to be shut down periodically to clean itself out. Wait a few minutes then restart the computer.

You loose EVERYTHING when you restore. If you don't have the disks you can't do it.

You should be doing the at least the security updates.

When you do a system restore, through the main menu, it puts the computer back to the way it was when it last did it.

Here's the way I got to it (on XP). Start menu => Control Panel => System

Under that, there's going to be a tab that says System Restore. If it was in the last couple of days (the last backup the computer did), then you're only going to lose what you did in the past couple of days.

I didn't mean the entire wipe and start anew as Tirjasdyn mentioned. I just meant the SysRestore that comes with Windows.

Uh-huh. And to clear up the confusion between System Restore (the Windows process) and using a Restore Disk (the wipe everything and start over process)

-- Windows' System Restore is a good thing, it restores backups of your settings that are stored in the Windows Registry.

The lose-everything "restore" is when you use a disk that came with the computer (if one did) or apply the same thing from a hidden partition on the hard drive that the manufacturer thought was a good idea because it saves them a small piece of plastic. The hard drive is reformatted and Windoze, with any original extra software, is installed. Bad deal.

A complete shutdown and reboot at least every few days is one of the best things you can do to prevent all sorts of misery. A new Restore Point is created automatically only when you do a complete shutdown/boot. You can do them manually, but you risk cumulative corruption by keeping Windoze sleep-deprived

Many computers have no install or restore disks. Mine was second-hand and came with nothing. It survived until last Friday without needing anything...but luckily I'm a good scrounger - lol