Right, Karma, I wasn't totally clear about what was happening. I would leave my computer, assumed it went to sleep but when I came back everything was frozen (lack of a better word) so I had to manually shut down and reboot so that apps would work, etc. Since my last post Microsoft updated Microsoft Security Essentials and most everything is now working like it did prior to the 16th of this month. The only thing now is that the hard drive doesn't shut down no matter what power settings I choose but I guess I'll live with that for now.