RandyL

Hi prince; Did they detect and remove anything? If so do you remember what? Is there any change? RandyL

Hi; I love your name. Really funny. Fans these days should be really quiet. Open up your PC and see if there is any dust or built up gunk inside. Especially the fans. RandyL

Hi again; I'm still leaning toward this being a memory problem. I have seen low memory in old dos systems like ME and 98 cause the color issue on the taskbar and toolbar. I had ME and it would do it when free resources dropped too low. I really taxed my systems at times. XP of course is not dos and handles memory different but if both sticks are bad or failing or incompatable this might be the cause of all your issues. Windows updates most likely is not the issue. Remember you got memory errors on the install. Wait a bit for other opinions. But you might need new memory. RandyL

Hi Bridget; Did you check seth's link above? http://www.helpwithwindows.com/techfiles/explorer-crashes.html I would read it if I were you. I have seen trojans that can cause very similar issues. In any case try the scans listed there. That's what first caught my eye. I forget. Did you run the Norton removal tool? If it's a third party shell extension problem download ShellExView as per the above link to see which ones you may have. And don't forget to wait for others to respond to this post. They most likely have some ideas. RandyL

Thanks AS. RandyL

Judie if this is a new problem or unrelated to the original post of data recovery you should post it as a new topic. Thanks; RandyL

Hi fraufreda; Can you clarify for us? Did the install with just one memory go OK? Are you still using one? Did you put the other back in? Did the problem resurface after putting the second one in? Antivirus alone is not enough. You need an antispyware program and a running firewall too. I "think" you just disabled automatic updates for Windows. If so get them manually by going to the update site. Very important. RandyL

Hi Hubba. Glad you found us. Looking forward to working with you. RandyL

Hi fraufreda; Yes. You will need to reinstall. Can you clean the cd drive or swap it with the one from your new computer? If it still keeps restarting post back on that issue. Why did you reinstall on the old one to begin with. RandyL

Hi Rob; Can you give us the exact error message? Did you try the option to go into safe mode? Do you have the option "last known good configuration"? RandyL

Hi remboi; I'm just glad we could point you in the right direction. We really appreciate you getting back to us and letting us know it helped. Feel free to pass the word that FPCH is here and waiting to help. RandyL

Hi Kev; Was there a reason for reinstalling Windows? What kind of errors were you getting on the install? How did you "format"? I assume from the XP CD. Did you choose NTSF? You can't boot the failed install of XP from another computer. If your installation failed you have no operating system. RandyL

Glad to hear you managed to save your files and get Windows reinstalled. Thanks for posting back to let us know. Please tell your friends about FPCH. RandyL

Bennett have you installed the latest Windows installer? Maybe that will help. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=889482FC-5F56-4A38-B838-DE776FD4138C&displaylang=en Normally a clean FULL install and a visit to the Windows update site would take care of this but I could be wrong. Either way stay tuned. We do have Dell users and Moderators on this forum. RandyL

Hi bennitt; I don't know your options of restore/recovery/reinstall on your Dell PC but did you have more then one option? Repair-recover-constructive-deconstructive etc. If so what did you choose? If you performed a complete re-install then your system should be in a factory state. That is just like brand new with no other programs or data you may have installed. This would include no Dell drivers or additional software. Since this a Dell run the Dell utilities CD if you haven't already. Did you have any problems with the re-install? If you did do a complete install and ran the utility cd and still have problems it might be hardware related. Please get back to us. RandyL

Hi kwl; Before you get in too deep consider uninstalling the new software and see if everthing is back to normal. You can also restore to a point before this if you have a restore point. Granted this may not help with restoring the original drivers but it is worth a shot. Please answer Wolfeymoles questions, he has a lot of knowledge. In the future set a restore point manually before installing new software. Just trying to help; RandyL

Hi prince; All great advice above. You do really have to get your startup programs down to a minimum. But the first thing I would do is clean your machine thouroughly. AVG and AdAware by themselves are not good enough to clean what you obviously have on your computer. I would run all these programs as I usually do when I see a system such as yours. First uninstall any programs that may harbor issues. Scan again with your AVG. Scan again with AdAware. http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_free.php Scan with Spybot S&D. http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html Scan with SuperAntSpyware. http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.htmlhttp://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html Do an online scan with housecall. http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ More programs or steps may be needed. Once you're sure it's clean turn system restore off, then on then make a restore point. Get your startup programs under control. Pacs-portal. Learn more and database. http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_index.htm Sysinfo. Database. http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php Use AdvancedSetup's links to look into your processes. RandyL

Hi Samo, try this. Control Panel classic view>Default Programs>Associate a file type and protocol with a program. Yes Wolfey the Open With function is still the same in Vista. RandyL

Hi edh; Try uninstalling the drives from Device Manager again. Re-boot instead of using the Add Hardware Wizard. Worth a shot. What make and model is your computer? Newer drivers might be obtained from them. RandyL

I pete; Since it's a .swf file extension it's just a shockwave flash file. Harmless. I have a screenclean .swf file and it's hilarious. You open the file and move your mouse around it to view the results. The link is dead it appears. RandyL

Hi Cookie; Were always here. Hurry back.

Hi MT; Don't worry about your data recovery software. Just follow the links provided by AdvancedSetup and seth. You already have your files backed up. You simply need to follow those steps in order to "take ownership" of the files. Then you can use them. The above links are specifically for XP. Thanks guys. RandyL

Hi blondi01; Welcome to the site. I'm sure you'll get the best of help here. Hope to see your post soon. RandyL

COD4 is Call of Duty. Battlefield Vietnam is a game played mostly online. Xfire is an online gaming portal. http://www.xfire.com/ Am I correct? RandyL

Hi Big Lar; I'll look around on the game side of your issue. In the mean time just in case the information is needed can you supply any information on your card, router or modem? Also what Operating System are you using? Please be patient. I'm sure someone with more experience then me in networking will do their best to try to help you. RandyL