Now presss & hold down in this order:
ctrl Alt Delete
In the applications box see if the DOS command prompt is running.
If so highlight it & press end task at the bottom.

EDIT - Assuming you are running Windows XP or Vista.

Done that Harry and the wretched "Windows cannot end this program etc" box pops up. (Yes, XP Pro)

It's still running. I'll leave it there while I walk into town to get some fresh air.

In that case sounds like you have a corruption in Windows.
Have you tried my original suggestion of restart with F8 pressed & start in safe mode with command prompt?

Hilary,

"Does anyone know if Opera leaks memory?"

Don't know, but it can build up horrendous cache's. CCleaner will remove them.

My secondary problem was that I back up each night using Karen's Replicator and that is set not to delete files on my backup. I recovered about five gig of Opera cache info the other day - but temporarily stalled my PC in the process as it hated doing a delete on a USB drive using Win Explorer.

Tony

Hil: All the browsers leak. Their data-driven nature renders them susceptible to all sorts of horrors inflicted by badly-scripted web pages. Best to close them down every so often (daily??) and re-open to clean up the memory footprint.

I thought so! Ta DelBoy.

I can watch the cogs whirring by about 5pm most days and had been tempted to switch to Firefox instead.

re - CCleaner - a great little prog this imho.
One little puzzle though - despite always using Firefox as part of my dont let Bill have it all strategy, CCleaner always has a lot of IE files to clear. Bloody thing still finds a way to get into the act and I don't know how :-(

Just try doing a CCleaner clean after you have tidied up and compressed your e-mails (in OE). I get asked to do this every so often, by the program.

I think it must rename all the e-mails, by putting different file extensions on them or whatever. Anyhow, instead of the more normal regular 6MB to 20MB, the result is I have to delete a massive 500MB of junk files in the clean.

Yes. CCleaner? I just couldn't and wouldn't be without it!

It's me again Harry, back from a refreshing but slippy walk into town. Yes, tried your original suggestion, and everything else, but still no joy. I think it's time to leave half well alone. Many thanks again. TOK

Hilary,

Try FreeRam XP (for Win XP & 2000. Don't know whether it's compatible with "7"), from

http://www.yourwaresolutions.com/

or

http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/system/fwmemory.html

No prob TOK. I would suggest you back up anything you have which you don't want to lose pdq!
Unless Opti has any other suggestions, maybe a format & clean install is the way forward assuming you have the Windows disk. It will then correct or flag any bad sectors you have on the hard drive before installing.
(there are other ways of correcting errors using DEBUG, but complicated without sitting at the machine.)

Harry - I have Acronis backing up daily to another internal disc so hopefully all OK. Yes, I have the disc but I don't fancy a re-install. I can live with it as it is for now. Regards,
Tok.

EDIT Just remembered that the chkdsk reports indicated no bad sectors on the disk, just faults on the file system, so perhaps nothing too dire.

Anybody know anything about rootkits? I did a virus scan on my laptop and found Rootkit.Agent.H :-( It had infected a driver file. However, the scan didn't detect any other infections - nothing dodgy in the registry or memory processes, for example.

The previous virus scan was three months before, and in those three months I used my credit cards for online purchases, accessed my bank accounts, etc.

I guess I'm hoping that the fact it was "only" an infected file, and no strange registry keys, etc, means that it didn't do any real damage - such as send my Visa card info to Ukraine or somewhere... Is that a realistic assumption, or should I be contacting the credit card companies to block my cards?

As a metter of interest, what did you use to find it - this thing - Rootkit revealer?

I used the free version of Malwarebytes 1.44 - in general I've found it pretty good.

http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html

I'm a SUPERAntiSpyware fan myself.

Check it out at http://www.superantispyware.com/index.html

There's a FREE version and a PRO version for Real Time blocking. They are identical except for the Real time for the PRO version. It can be set for program update scans to be checked every 8 hours and it has several sorts of Custom Auto-Scanning.

I don't think I'm alone in believing it's the best on the market. Apparently, so do 20M other users.

Try using 'FRIEND' as a Coupon to get yourself a 25% discount on the PRO

yes i have been using super anti spyware for a while now,
just done an update and they do offers like $9.95 to upgrade to pro,
as said the same but real time,
i have AVG real time,

My PC's just come back from repair with a new motherboard. Everything is working fine except for sound. I've done all the obvious checks - volume levels, cable connection, etc. but still no sound.

Doesn't have a dedicated sound card. On board sound is provided by the Intel MOBO D845GVSR AAC45439-30. When I look at the device manager, the audio device is certainly present. Can't figure out what's wrong. Any clues?

Have you checked the volume controls and there is a sound section to the control panel where the default sound device is specified.