Installing MSE disables taskbar

I believe that at this point in time I would begin to seriously consider performing a clean install... You have some serious issues going on here...

Tew is saying take your win DVD and install again. Its a PIA, but tews may be right. If you dont know how, just ask and you will have an answer. You can also read about clean install in our tutorials.

hallydai said:

Richard - what is PIA? Sorry may be a dumb question. Also, am I correct in thinking that if needed I can do a clean install from the recovery disks I created when I first got my computer as it did not come with any media?

Im embarassed now (Pain in the XXX)

Every computer manufacturer provides a way to restore to factory settings. Dell gives both DVD and a recover partition.
If your company provied a recovery partition and you made a copy, I would say that you can return to factory settings. But, I have fears that it may just be a boot disc.

hallydai said:

ha ha - that's funny! good to add a little levity to the situation.

But as a follow up to my question to tews. You know that saying, "he who doesn't learn from his mistakes is doomed to repeat them..." (or something like that). I don't know what I could have done in such a short time to mess things up so much that the general recommendation is to do a clean install. So, not knowing this, I have no confidence I won't do it again.

You paid good money for your computer and in this economy it was a difficult.Enjoy your computer do not be intimidated by it. When this gets fixed, buy an external hard drive. Make a system image (its part of win 7) and put the image away. Now you can enjoy your computer in anyway that you want. Screw up, just put the image back. You may want to keep that image updated, also.

Completely uninstall Norton/Symantec ... follow these instructions
Download and run the Norton Removal Tool

Uninstall MSE, then re-install it.

There are a couple more suggestions I'll make after you've done the above.