"Start" box now empty

yup your right I thought I would need a clean instal.
3 hours was from opening the boxes, coffee, scratching of head and elswhere etc etc

quintain said:

"I really must read the book !!! "

Here you go (free version, unless you want the pictures),

TweakGuides.com - The TweakGuides Tweaking Companion

Between the 415 pages in that and here,

Tutorials - Windows 7 Forums

you should be able to find just about everything you need. And when in doubt, there is always the forum.

:)

quintain said:

Thanks Everyone
With a combination of a little from all of you I now have what I need.
My knowledge of W7 is growing enormously "I really must read the book !!! "

Sorry we couldn't get you all the way sorted. Doing a clean install as previously stated would be the safest way. If you learned something new today, it's to stay away from those registry cleaners!

After you get this clean install done, update your drivers and windows patches then IMMEDIATELY make an image of your drive. Windows 7 can do this natively now. If you run into a situation like this in the future you can reinstall from the fresh install image and be up in running in 10 minutes.

Thanks again, sounds like good advice which I will take.

don't reinstall!!! try creating another user account and log on as that user.