[metesky]

I want to thank you all for the help and encouragement. ;O)

Bottom line: After putzing around for hours on end, it occurred to me that when I first got the machine five years ago it came loaded with XP Pro, but with an upgrade disk to Vista Bussiness, so I ended up doing a clean restart with Vista. I lost a ton of old, mostly useless data (sixteen years worth of "favorites" for example, a lot of them dead links anyway), and most of the important stuff is on Madame Dufarge's machine anyway.

I have all the discs for the other programs I use and they are all running just fine. My main bitch is that it will take me forever to reload all my music. Good thing I had all that backed to CDs, but still, hundreds of them... Jeeez.

I now have more protection than ever, including Malewarebytes of course.

Again, thanks for all the help. It's just one of the many things that make FR such a great site.

P.S. I'm already starting to really dislike Vista. I'll see how this shakes out after I give it a chance.

[Carriage Hill]

Vista? There are still available WIN-7 Pro copies on the shelves, before the WIN-8 crap replaces it. If you can get a copy, think about doing it. Ive never heard anything good about the ill-fated Vista release. I bought 5 copies years ago and have enough in reserve, and already on several other machines, MS support or not, to last a lifetime. I saw the WIN-7 (don’t remember which version, but get Pro if you can find it) ‘upgrade’ DVD at Best Buy for $99.95 a few weeks ago.

[oh8eleven]

I lost a ton of old, mostly useless data ... it will take me forever to reload all my music.
Glad you found a solution, but if you continue to keep data files on your PC, chances are, you're just going to lose them again.
Your upgrade to Vista Business is essentially a "patch" over Win XP and upgrades are notoriously buggy and unreliable.
I suggest you use flash drives to store your data and I also suggest you buy the full version of Vista and then do a clean install.
I'd recommend Win 7, but I don't use it and I understand there are some compatibility issues with older software programs.

[Doogle]

...keep in mind you always have FR archives to peruse for old links you may have used...do a self search...*smiles*

and of course you can always post a thread seeking info on links now and then that others may have...

[OldEarlGray]

[My main bitch is that it will take me forever to reload all my music. ]

Once you get the system restored it will be an ideal time to make an image of your HD:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/182-6796721-3375647?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=external+hard+drive

Plus:

Something like..

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_nf=1&cp=5&gs_id=2k&xhr=t&q=xxclone

So if you have to restore again in the future, it will be much simpler.