I think I finally have it under control!! Yesterday, I ran all 7 adware/virus programs I have. Adaware picked up 69 items! And that was for less than a 24 hr period as I've been running it everyday, sometimes twice, since installing it! Ran it a second time and it picked up two more. After scanning & deleting with all the programs, I checked my hard drive for errors (used to be called ScanDisk before XP I think). It took over an hour for it to finish but seems to have done a world of good. After rebooting and logging on to Windows my desktop came right up as fast as it used to and so far, my quick launch bar and Start menu have not quit on me. Ran Adaware and Spybot again today and nothing - nada! And IE has not opened unexpectedly with ads today either. Yea!!! Coleen To unsub or change your email settings: //www.freelists.org/webpage/pctechtalk To access our Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PCTechTalk/messages/ //www.freelists.org/archives/pctechtalk/ For more info: //www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/list?list_id=pctechtalk