XP hands in many areas

[olde kat]

Greetings. It all started last Friday when I asked the tech guys at
MLB to help me get the ball games on Firefox, which is MLB's preferred
browser. They couldn't do that, but did advise me to download the
latest updates to XP (SP3). Now, my machine hangs when my screen
saver "my pictures slideshow" is running. Always at a random time.
It hangs when I try to access the Recycle Bin, when right click on the
desktop, and other times that are too numerous to remember. It also
loads some of my startup programs in the status bar sometimes, and
sometimes it doesn't.

Since I am not a programmer, and have no way of knowing how or what to
fix in the registry, and cannot find hide nor hair of those updates in
the add/remove programs list, I'm thinking of either trying to repair
the OS, or just reload the whole thing. I don't want to do this.
It's a real PITA. Is there some other way that I can get this thing
to function properly? Oh yeah, I can watch the ball games on Firefox
now.

In case I forget to mention it later, thanks to any and all who can
provide relevant and serious assistance.

 

[olde kat]

You could try a system restore: Start, Programs, Accessories, System
Tools, System Restore. Restore to a date just before last Friday.

I'm not sure why a Windows update would change Firefox and it's ability
to watch ball games. I don't use Firefox.

If the system restore works, then you could try taking the Windows
update one at a time to see which one caused the problems you're having.

Maybe somebody else will come along with a better solution?

Thanks JD. The misguided support at MLB caused the change in XP, not
Firefox. Restore is useless. I tried going back earlier that day,
the previous day, 3 days previous, a week previous and a month
previous. I always received the message that my system could not be
restored, no changes have been made. No other solutions to this
point. I'm just going to try to repair the OS, and if that doesn't
work, just reload the entire thing. Thanks again for your response.

 

[123Jim]

You could try a system restore: Start, Programs, Accessories, System
Tools, System Restore. Restore to a date just before last Friday.

I'm not sure why a Windows update would change Firefox and it's ability
to watch ball games. I don't use Firefox.

If the system restore works, then you could try taking the Windows
update one at a time to see which one caused the problems you're having.

Maybe somebody else will come along with a better solution?

Thanks JD. The misguided support at MLB caused the change in XP, not
Firefox. Restore is useless. I tried going back earlier that day,
the previous day, 3 days previous, a week previous and a month
previous. I always received the message that my system could not be
restored, no changes have been made. No other solutions to this
point. I'm just going to try to repair the OS, and if that doesn't
work, just reload the entire thing. Thanks again for your response.

If System Restore is not succeeding in normal boot, you should try a system
restore in safe mode.

 

[olde kat]

If System Restore is not succeeding in normal boot, you should try a system
restore in safe mode.

Did that too, Jim. Thanks.

 

[BillW50]

In

Did that too, Jim. Thanks.

Some antivirus and some security software disables Windows System
Restore. They do this because they use their own version of System
Restore.

Malware can also disable System Restore. Although they do this because
it is harder to get rid of the malware and they don't want you to remove
them.