(Note: I don't know anything technical about computers, so you may not be able to answer this question with the information I give.) I have Windows XP and I recently removed all of my Sims games (there are 9) because they were running slowly and then I installed them again. For about 2 weeks, the game was working fine, but one day my computer just shut down. In an attempt to restart, it just shut down again. The next time, a message appeared that Windows did not successfully restart and gave me an option of Safe Mode, Start with most recent settings that worked, and start windows normally. I have tried the recent settings and start normally, and only after starting normally three times did it turn on again. I wanted to know in what ways Safe Mode restricted you and if I could still play full-screen games with it and if it was helpful with this problem. If there are any other solutions or if you could help me with what the problem is, I would appreciate it. Thank you so much! Mo

Mo813, several things come to mind. All involve housekeeping. SWAG, sounds to me like it's a memory issue. Do you have IE set to delete 'temp' files on shutdown? They can consume lots of memory if not purged. Another 'maybe' is a file called index.dat. That one's a little sneakier. A common ailment is a file called 'index.dat'. It gets read every time and can take quite a while if it’s too bloated. Can even use so much memory that Windows can't run. It's like a log file and keeps a record of every site you visit on the web. Empty, it's 32K, but it can grow HUGE. It's a protected file and can't be deleted by normal methods. CCleaner (free @: http://www.ccleaner.com/) can get rid of it (not to worry, it gets rebuilt EMPTY on the next boot.). CCleaner can handle both. HTH. Ed in Texas.