every few days, my computer shows signs of carrying a virus. the icons in the internet toolbar menu beside the words activity, best of the web, channel guide, etc... all of the icons change colour. they suddenly appear only white. the icons on the start, programs menu then appear hatched with dark colours. i've tried using various anti virus software, but none of them are able to stop this thing happening. any ideas out there?

kingheffo, have to disagree with the advice Suresh Ranga gave you and here's why. The formatting process erases everything on the disk and while there's no doubt a fresh start seems enticing, sadly, we usually have important 'treasures' stored that we aren't ready to lose. Do a scan in safe mode and that should handle most any infection. You can visit one of the online scans to see it you have a nasty. Another thing to consider is your refresh rate. Since your icons seem to have little or no info as they appear, could there be things running in the background consuming machine cycles and slowing down your refresh rate? Have to agree with the other suggestions offered. I simply would draw the line at formatting. HTH. Ed in Texas.