Help! What Happened to Windows?

[Keith Russell]

Hi.

I hope someone can help me, because after several hours of
fighting this, I'm just getting more and more frustrated.

Windows (all updates applied) has started to behave very
strangely, making numerous applications impossible to use. Here
are some of the symptoms--I'll try to describe them the best I
can.

1. Windows Help doesn't work (in any program, it seems). When I
click on a help topic to display it, I see a new window quickly
flash, but it never opens and I'm unable to display the help
topic.

2. Applications like Good Sync, Roboform, and Website-Watcher
display nothing but blank windows in some situations (e.g., the
Good Sync main window, the right-hand panel in RoboForm edit
mode, and the internal browser window in Website-Watcher).

3. I am getting numerous prompts when I try to open URLs, asking
me if I want to "save this file."

4. When I open IE 6 (current home page is http://my.myway.com), I
get the following message:

Do you want to save this file?
Name: my.myway.com
Type: Unknown File Type
From: my.myway.com

From this point, there's no way to open IE.

If I create a URL link (using Firefox), set IE to be the default
browser, and click on the link, IE opens, but with a blank
window.

Yesterday, with the home page set to the IE default (MSN), I was
getting a message saying IE was unable to open '/', and the
program would refuse to open. I changed the home page, hoping it
would help. It didn't.

5. Windows Help and Support refuses to open.

6. Worst of all, I can't even use System Restore to go to a saved
restore point, because when I run it, I get nothing but a blank
window!

Can anyone tell me what's going on, and what I can do to fix it?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[irishgemini]

Hi.

I hope someone can help me, because after several hours of
fighting this, I'm just getting more and more frustrated.

Windows (all updates applied) has started to behave very
strangely, making numerous applications impossible to use. Here
are some of the symptoms--I'll try to describe them the best I
can.

1. Windows Help doesn't work (in any program, it seems). When I
click on a help topic to display it, I see a new window quickly
flash, but it never opens and I'm unable to display the help
topic.

2. Applications like Good Sync, Roboform, and Website-Watcher
display nothing but blank windows in some situations (e.g., the
Good Sync main window, the right-hand panel in RoboForm edit
mode, and the internal browser window in Website-Watcher).

3. I am getting numerous prompts when I try to open URLs, asking
me if I want to "save this file."

4. When I open IE 6 (current home page is http://my.myway.com), I
get the following message:

Do you want to save this file?
Name: my.myway.com
Type: Unknown File Type
From: my.myway.com

From this point, there's no way to open IE.

If I create a URL link (using Firefox), set IE to be the default
browser, and click on the link, IE opens, but with a blank
window.

Yesterday, with the home page set to the IE default (MSN), I was
getting a message saying IE was unable to open '/', and the
program would refuse to open. I changed the home page, hoping it
would help. It didn't.

5. Windows Help and Support refuses to open.

6. Worst of all, I can't even use System Restore to go to a saved
restore point, because when I run it, I get nothing but a blank
window!

Can anyone tell me what's going on, and what I can do to fix it?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Kieth,
If you have not tried this yet I would do the following.
FIRST: run PC Doctor, run the short test on your hard drive an
system.
if that comes out as good, run a spyware removal tool (I us
Spysweeper), and also do a virus scan all files.

if nothing comes from all that, look under you device manager to see i
theres a problem.

Try these things and let e know how you make out.
Shan

 

[Guest]

It may sound silly, but try to open Internet Explorer. When the blank page
appears, click on "File" and look at the drop-down menu and make sure "Work
Offline" is not checked.

Just a thought...
Mack