You're welcome. :)
Since it does run fine in Safe Mode, you might see if you may be able to use the tutorial below to troubleshoot and hopefully find the culprit.
Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup
Thanks I'll try that, as far as system restore goes, I can't get it to show me any earlier restore points before yesterday when I d/l ed the update that caused the problem & that one doesn't seem to work, v.fustrating especially on a less than 6 month old PC
Thank you very much that seems to have worked, I'm shocked by the result though, seems like the problem app was avast free edition, which iv'e used for years with no problem on several PC's
Am now installing AVG which I haven't used for many years, hopefuly this will solve it...
great, problem solved, still can't quite beleive that avast's latest update totally screwed my OS but you live & learn, again many thanks Brink
You're most welcome Zyphodb. Yeah, sometimes there are bugs even in the most reliable programs. :)
Are your games folders in the program files on your C: drive? If, in safe mode, you can open the program files folder and see if the setup files are in the folder too. If they are, when you do the clean install you will still have a "Windows.old" folder on the C: drive, and the program files folder will be in there (Windows.old) too. IF the setup files are there, just reinstall the games. Otherwise, you will need to network that computer, somehow, and migrate the game files to it, for storage.
If none of this works for you, the Brink, I'm sure, will guide you where you need to go.
BTW, the games might be the cause of your troubles. Did you do the "uncheck drill" when you were installing them?
My bad! I didn't see the resolution in my email. But I told you, Brink is the man!!!
All working fine now thanks BTW what is the 'uncheck drill'?
Oh sry u mean the msconfig/services thing? no but I'll know for the future, sry just got up, a bit dense...
Nah, I meant the adware check boxes in the install process. Some programs have an "offer" on several of the dialogue pages in the process. If you just click "Next" without reading them, you'll have crap for days on your system. I'm sure you've seen them. They'll already have a check mark in them, so I call it the "uncheck drill"!
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