MadMonkey: and TigerCat, this time once you have your machine all nice and happy again, with all your own personal programs installed, internet settings etc i would suggest that buy a small portabale USB drive (20gb is sufficient) and use Norton GHOST to ghost an entire image of yur PC. That way if an error ever presents itself again you simply plug it in, select the GHOST option and bingo......in record time it will wipe your PC and GHOST it back to a nice working position....similar to the RESTORE in XP but much MUCH better