Having big problems with my computer. After logging into Windows, my screensaver is frozen, there are no icons and the cursor is frozen. I by-pass the log in and get an active desktop but my files aren't there. I did manage to get into DOS and saw the list. My question is...How can I save these files ? I am at the point of frustration where I want to wipe the computer clean and start over, but I don't want to lose my files. Sure hope someone has some suggestions. I know next to nothing about DOS.

The problem is apparently that you have put something in your startup folder that causes the computer to crash. This part of "security" in Windows is, luckily, pretty part to hack. Just because you don't see your files on your desktop don't mean they vanished; different users can have different desktops, that simply resides in different directories on the hard disk. Open the directory "C:\windows\profiles" and there will be subdirectories, one for each user, if your username was "bernie" there will be a directory named "bernie", which contains your files. If you don't find your files this way, simply do a search for any of the filenames that you know you had on your desktop, and you will find out which directory they are in.