Help Me !!!! Cant Click System Tabs

[Guest]

have some security feature that is making life hard. Basically when I go
into "Start" then "Settings", then hit "Control Panel" and bring up
"System"...It brings up the little box that is "System Properties". Now I
can hit the system tabs like "Hardware", "Advanced", and "Automatic Updates".
That's not a problem. But the problem is when I go down and try and click
on, lets say the "Add Hardware Wizard" button under the Hardware tab, or any
other button, like all the "Settings" buttons under the "Advanced" tab
nothing happens. When I put the cursor of the mouse onto one of those
buttons, its not recognizing it as something I can click. Its giving me no
way to access them. So I click from tab to tab, but not click on any of the
buttons on each tab. Some security feature is not letting me to be able to
change any of these settings. Do you know how to help me rectify this
situation? Because of this I can not switch the Automatic tab under
Automatic Updates on. Its on Turn of Automatic Updates. The computer will
not let my mouse click on Turn on Automatic Updates. The mouse does not give
me the option to click on it.

Please Help.

Thanks
Michael

 

[Maurice N ~ MVP]

Some suggestions: Logon as Administrator and then try again. If using XP Home, you'll need to boot up into Safe Mode first.
In any event, do bootup in Safe Mode (tap & retap F8 as pc is first booting up). In safe Mode, try again.

Since some malware can block Automatic Updates, you need to run some diagnostic tools, including antivirus.

Make very sure your system does not have malware.
See <http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware>

Sysclean would be a good first run for virus check. Just be sure to also run other spyware / malware checks.

 

[Maurice N ~ MVP]

Michael,

P.S. From Start menu, select RUN, and type in
SERVICES.MSC <Enter-key>

Check up on these Windows services. They need to show a startup type of Manual or Automatic.
Here are the services & their Startup types:

Automatic Updates Automatic
Background Intelligent Transfer Service(BITS) Manual
Cryptographic Services Automatic
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Automatic
System Restore Service Automatic