Pofadda

Well, it went away. I discovered this when I realised that I wasn't being harried to 'sort my computer out'. No-one knows why it healed or how it got that way. Many thanks for your suggestion, though. OTT: You're an administrator - please tell me how to give thanks/like/whatever. Can't find out how to. Or if I can now edit the OP to say 'Solved'. Can't see a button anymore.

My wife's Windows 7 machine has suddenly stopped launching graphics files - it launches the Properties window instead! I can launch the .jpg or whatever by pressing the context menu key (right one, on mine) and selecting Open from it. If I just double-click on the file up comes Properties. If I change the default program - say from Irfan View to Paint - the Properties window still appears. Other - non-graphic - files seem to open as usual with their defaults. This started, she says, earlier this evening when she unzipped a pair of jpegs I sent her by Gmail (if that info is of any use). Any ideas what to do to change this??

Many thanks for that! I hadn't come across the Reg. setting which gave hope... until I actually looked at the Dev. Man. and found 'Wake' greyed out for the WiFi card. Under Control Panel-Power Options, I found change-change advanced-Sleep-'Allow timed wake' (on the Samsung (W7) but not on a Packard Bell (Vista)) and will be testing with this. More news after tests.

My wife's Samsung NP300 laptop is supposed to backup to an always-on machine twice a week but, no matter what time it is scheduled for, there is a chance that the lappie will be asleep... My clever solution is to have the backup machine send a WoL packet to wake the laptop up before the scheduled time. I read that WoL doesn't work over WiFi (her only possible connection) - is this REALLY so (he pleaded)? If not, how can do this? If it is impossible, can you think of another way to automatically jolt it into life?