I am also running Norton Antivirus 2006. Once my computer boots everything looks fine. If I scroll my mouse to the bottom the task bar will not come up. I can run any program, but once the program starts, as soon as I click within a window, the blue bar at the top turns gray and the computer freezes. I can do cntl/alt/del. When that window opens, I click on it once, the blue bar at the top turns gray. I click on it a second time, the gray bar turns blue and my computer runs normally and the task bar can be seen again. At the same time this started, my screen saver quit working. I tried several screen savers and none of them will work. When I first boot the computer, if I let it sit the screen saver will start running. But when I try using the computer and do the whole cntl/alt/del thing the screen saver will not run again. Any ideas? When this happens and I do the cntl/alt/del and look at processes, usually 98% is on system idle process.

You shouldn't be using cntl/alt/del to change screens. You are not explaining WHAT you click on in Task Manager when you open it with cntl/alt/del. Screen savers will not initiate if there is activity. So something is active and is stopping the screensaver from working. Concerning your taskbar, you must have the taskbar set to autohide. Get the taskbar to show and right click on it. Choose properties> untick autohide.

Thanks for the response. I am not using cntl/alt/del to change screens. I am using it because my computer is locked up and that is the only thing that will run. I don't click anything on Task Manager, I can click anywhere in the window and the blue top bar turns gray and when I click a second time it turns blue and my computer unlocks and every thing but screen saver works fine after that. MY task bar is set to autohide. Except it shouldn't be so hidden it doesn't come up at all until I do the cntl/alt/del thing. Was I that unclear on what I am saying?

You were unclear, especially in regard to the taskbar. I can't see what affect clicking outside of the Task Manager box would have. Concerning NAV 2006. Are you subscribing to that service? NAV is a resource hog and usless if you aren't paying for updates. Try booting into Safe Mode and see if you still have the same problems.

I am not using NAV 2006. I'm not trying to be mean but at no time did I say I clicked outside the Task Manager box. When I do the ctrl\alt\del it says no applications are running and under processes it shows the only thing taking up CPU is the system idle process. Once I click within the Task Manager box the blue bar changed gray indicating that is no longer the active window. Clicking within should not change the window to inactive. When I click within again it becomes active again and for some reason unfreezes my computer. BEFORE I do the ctrl/alt/del thing, when I try to run any other program, ie Eudora, Explorer, Firefox, when I click within the window of the program, the window becomes inactive and nothing else will run. I did boot in safe mode. I am not real familiar with doing this. When it came up in safe mode the task bar comes up automatically so I couldn't check to see if moving my cursor to the bottom of the screen would unhide it. I started Eudora and it ran fine and didn't lock up. So it looks like the problem doesn't exist in Safe Mode. Now what?

" am also running Norton Antivirus 2006". NAV is Norton AntiVirus. You are not clicking to remove an entry are you? That means that something running while in standard mode is causing the lockups. Did this condition appear all at once? Have you recently installed any software or hardware?

Sorry about the NAV confusion. I did go into MSCONFIG and turned off all the Norton stuff in Startup and rebooted. That did not fix the problem. I haven't installed anything recently. It didn't totally start all at once. One evening I noticed that my screen saver wasn't working. So I played with that for awhile. I set it to start after 1 minute and tried several different screen savers. None of them worked. The next day I noticed that when I turned on my computer I couldn't get my hidden Taskbar to come up. I always bring it up, because I can't run anything until NAV does it's thing, once it's icon pops up in the taskbar I know I can get to work. I then started Eudora. It came up fine and asked for my password. When I clicked in the password box, the blue bar went gray - it shouldn't have. At that point nothing else would run, my cursor moved but it had no effect when clicking. I couldn't close Eudora or start anything else. Out of frustration I did ctrl\alt\del to see if I could stop Eudora. When I clicked within the taskmanager box, that blue bar at the top also went gray. I clicked once more in the taskmanager box (nowhere in particular just in the window) and the bar went back to blue. I closed out the Taskmanager window and my computer ran fine. It doesn't have to be Eudora, it can be any program. This now happens every time I turn on my computer or restart my computer. I tried doing a system restore and pick a restore point from a month ago but all my restore points are gone! I don't know if there is a relation there or not. I don't know where my restore points went, I used to have a bunch and now they are no more.