Freezing

[Guest]

I am suddenly having a problem with XP freezing certain programs (e.g., IE)
quite frequently. When that happens, the taskbar also disappears from the
desktop. When that happens, I cannot open any programs, whether by using the
desktop icons or by going to programs in the start menu. I can restart by
using ctrl/esc. When the computer restarts, it works fine until the next
freeze up.

I have removed IE 7.0 and am using 6.0, which is fully up to date. I have
removed Microsoft Office suite and reinstalled. I have tried the MS
malicious software removal tool. (Contrary to what it says, it does not do a
full scan after doing the quick scan and finding nothing.) I use Norton
Internet Security, which is fully up to date.

 

[Rock]

I am suddenly having a problem with XP freezing certain programs (e.g., IE)
quite frequently. When that happens, the taskbar also disappears from the
desktop. When that happens, I cannot open any programs, whether by using
the
desktop icons or by going to programs in the start menu. I can restart by
using ctrl/esc. When the computer restarts, it works fine until the next
freeze up.

I have removed IE 7.0 and am using 6.0, which is fully up to date. I have
removed Microsoft Office suite and reinstalled. I have tried the MS
malicious software removal tool. (Contrary to what it says, it does not
do a
full scan after doing the quick scan and finding nothing.) I use Norton
Internet Security, which is fully up to date.

Are you saying this issue occurred with the installation of IE7, and you
removed IE7 to attempt to fix it? Or, did it start after you removed IE7?
Either way IE7 is beta software and should only be installed on a test
system, one in which you are willing to restore the system from an image or
a clean install if things go wrong.

You could try a repair install.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

If that doesn't work do a clean install
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html