Ancient Lady

Hi Bizzylizzy I have replied to your private message but having thought that the problem had gone away with the Bing search engine it unfortunately decided to behave in exactly the same way as Google after a very short time. Still no solution but it is interesting that someone else is having the same problem. Perhaps this is common to 64 bit.

I was in the process of writing my update when you sent this post to me. I have just tried using bing instead of Google as this was the option when first installing Windows 7. I appeared to have no problem with this browser so maybe the problem is with Google and the 64 bit version of Windows 7.

An update to my previous post. I have since been to Microsoft Support for online assistance. The technician took control of my desktop and he has concluded that the problem has arrised because I upgraded my Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. Apparently Home Premium is 32 bit and the computer kept defaulting to the 32 bit IE. He thought he had fixed this by removing the 32 bit shortcut and it looked as though he had initially but I am still having the same problem when opening IE with the 64 bit shortcut. He has referred this to another Microsoft Department for a fix as he said this should not be happening. I will wait and hope for a fix.

I am afraid I am back again. Your fix worked the first time I tried it but when I booted up the computer today the problem was back again. It only seems to do it when first opening Internet Explorer. After the first time of clicking in the search bar you don't have to do it again as long as you don't close Internet Explorer. If you do then you have to click in the search bar again. Just a thought I have Kaspersky Internet Security Suite 2010 on this computer. I have not used this before so am not familiar with its workings. Could a setting in this somehow be causing this. I know it sounds a minor thing to have to click in the search bar, it is just annoying when I did not have to do so before. Any more ideas?

Many thanks, I have done what you suggested and it has resolved the problem

Thank you Armagedon for replying I am using Internet Explorer

Can anyone suggest why when opening my Google homepage I cannot type anything in my search bar without first clicking in it with my mouse despite the cursor flashing in it. I have tried a different keyboard and mouse and the problem is still there. I expect I need to change a setting somewhere but I don't know which one. When I used XP I could just start typing straight away. I have a Dell Studio XPS Desktop 8000, Windows 7 Professional 64bit

Many thanks I will take a look at Eset. Do you think I should just ignore the firewall warning or should I be looking for other reasons for its strange behaviour?

I did do the Eset scan before as suggested but I have done it again and no problems were found. I have now done all your suggested tests with nothing detected barring one cookie. Do you have any idea what would give me a false warning as I have noticed that if I ignore the firewall warning at start up, it then appears to turn itself back on after a couple of minutes? What firewall, spyware and anti-virus do you recommend whether it be free or paid? I am not a fan of Norton or McAfee.

I was just trying to explain that I wasn't disabling it myself at any stage. Not very good at all the technical terms so probably did not put it very well. I replied to BeeCeeBee that I had carried out all your suggestions from 1 to 4 finding only 1 cookie(taken care of). Not done step 5 unless you suggest I do so as no malware etc discovered. Spybot and AVG were disabled.

Yes, Spybot & AVG were disabled

I have carried out your suggested steps 1 to 4 and there have been absolutely no problems detected except for a cookie from HP which I have sorted but as I have HP computer and HP printer this was not unexpected. The malware tests were all negative as well as the scans barring the one cookie. I was not sure if it is therefore necessary to do step 5 re the clearing of the System Restore if no problem has been detected. Can you advise and also suggest other reasons for the firewall deactivating itself.

No, I have no problems with anything like that. The only 2 things that have changed recently is that I downloaded the new version of Spybot and before I did not install the Tea timer option as it used to slow down my computer but this time I thought I might try it again for extra security. The problem with the firewall deactivating itself did not start until about 10 days after installing the new Spybot. The other change is something my bank has introduced called Rapport to give extra security when online banking. This seems to be a program that can protect websites and can tell you if someone is using your log on details elsewhere. I think that is what it does but I am not exactly sure.

I have Windows Firewall set to on in the Firewall settings but when my computer boots up I get a warning that my firewall is off. I have to click the balloon and reset it each time. This has been happening for a few days now. For some reason the Firewall settings are being turned off between shut down and boot up even though I have set them to be on. I have run Spybot and done a full scan with AVG free and nothing has come up as a problem. I am running XP Media centre. Could this be some kind of virus?

I have now installed a wireless keyboard and mouse. Both worked correctly after installation and before shut down. When I came to boot up the computer the following day I had no use of any of the keys on the keyboard and the mouse showed an hourglass but would not move. The computer boots up ok and everything appears on my screen as it should I powered the computer off and re-booted and everything worked. This appears to be the same problem that I had with the wired keyboard and mouse, so now I am rather perplexed as to why it is happening. Any further suggestions welcome.