Thanks for the help, but the icon scrambling happens in both my Dell PC’s: one PC is 6 yrs old running Win 2K, and the other PC is 2 yrs old running Win XP.
I have Norton only on the old machine (never again, and never again anything Symantec), so it can’t be that because both machines do it.
Also, both machines don’t do it every time I reboot, maybe every other time I reboot.
As for the cursor—I have Word 2003, and my cursor (the blinking “I” shaped thing) remains in the way when I type, as it remains in the way as I write this reply to you.
All in all, these are just some of the annoyances that I live with because I’m tired of making a career of tracking them down to see if they can even be fixed. I have a regular job to do.
Computing is supposed to make work easier and more efficient—I have come to question whether for a very small business that is true.
In any event, I am forced to have PC’s in my business because my clients communicate information to me electronically, and expect replies by the same medium—however ridiculous and inefficient such communication often is (just as like telphoning the worker in the office next door is silly, so to is emailing someone you can telephone often silly and even more inefficient).
As for myself, only spreadsheets and letter-writing are the only two things truly beneficial to my small business.
The rest is hardly worth the headache.
Although some of it seems beneficial at first glance, even without the burden of incredible bug-chasing, those other apparent benefits usually aren’t in actual practice.
Something is definitely going wrong on shutdown. The only time my icons get re-arranged these days (since the game companies learned to stop being so annoying) is when there’s a crash, then usually only icons I moved during the last up time will get hosed, though every once in a while everything will left justify, but there’s always a crash involved.
My little I thingy goes away the instant a character it typed and won’t comeback until I twitch the mouse. Probably goofball setting somewhere, Word has WAY too many little settings, that options dialog would never pass Windows certification. Mine’s mostly default, except for everywhere the word “automatic” appears, I uncheck all those boxes.
Computing isn’t supposed to make work easier, I mean sure that was the big lie the industry used to sell them in the 80s, but it was a lie and some parts of the industry are finally starting to admit it. The only people whose work is made easier by computers are the spreadsheet commandos that analyze a business’ various statistics, everybody else does more work to feed the data into those spreadsheets. Of course it’s too late, the computers are entrenched and they’re never leaving. My only defense is I wasn’t actually in the industry when it was using the big lie.
Inventory and invoice tracking should be a no-brainer to do on a computer. Web research, ordering, and marketing (web site) is a good idea too.
The problem with a lot of these things is that there is a lot of bad software out there. Also, if you buy a computer through a major company like Dell, HP, Sony, etc. A lot of bad software comes pre-installed, and is difficult if not impossible to remove. There has to be some company out there that sells a computer with Office and QuickBooks, but without WeatherBug, PopCap games, and worthless trial software installed.