i'm having computer problems so someone suggested that i go back to a restore point but every time i've tried it says the system cannot be restored to those settings...is there any other way to get to a restore point? my icons are disappearing and reappearing, i have no internet connection, can't open the start menu or the taskbar, cannot right click on desktop, i've tried mcaffee virus scan, anitmaleware bytes, running explorer.exe (which disappears and reappears like my icons) nothing has helped...i also ran hijack this and posted it and deleted what i was told to delete and nothing has changed

If I were you I'd back up my data, and install fresh copy of windows (either from restore disk or install disk, depending what you have). Bit of a pain, and you'll need to reinstall software of course, but I suspect you have some nasty malware wrecking your windows settings (they often nobble system restore, though it does sometime just get corrupted). You can do a sort of 'manual' system restore if the backups are ok in System Volume Information folder. Need to boot from something like a BartPE Cd (something to give you access to the drive outside the o/s). Pick a snapshot folder, check the date/timestamps on the files, copy & rename the ones for SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE, SYSTEM & DEFAULT into \windows\system32\config, after first renaming the originals - in case you need them back). This is a brief description! As I said, I'd go for rebuild.

Try going into Safe Mode, and once there, run System Restore to restore your computer to an earlier state. This happened to me just a few days ago... when I tried to run it from regular Windows, it said it couldn't restore my settings. But when I did it from Safe Mode, it worked.

i've tried it in safe mode and in normal mode and i didn't get anywhere both times, i also don't have access to the windows xp cd and i did not quite understand the rest of what you suggested steve about the manual restore, but i think i'll bring it to the tech department tomorrow and see if they can fix it for me, thanks so much for the suggestions :)