[jambutty]

Originally Posted by entwisi

try using this to see whats happening

Process Monitor

i used it once to solve an obscure hardware issue. seems to do teh job properly.

I'm surprised that you say your PC is up to date, I thought IE7 had been sent to all and sundry by now????????

You could try updateing to that.

Thanks Ian. I’ve downloaded Process Monitor so that I can give it a whirl when next my computer shows the problem.

Months ago without so much as a by your leave a Windows update included IE7 and installed it. From then on I was plagued with requests for IE7 to contact all sorts of places. Fortunately ZoneAlarm prevented IE from doing so without my say so and I got fed up saying no. So it got uninstalled and a System Restore got me back to where I was. Since then any updates didn’t include IE7 so I have been able to avoid it.

I had considered trying it again and if it sorted things out all would be OK except I wouldn’t know what was happening with IE6. I prefer to try and solve a problem rather than run away from it.

I noticed something else this morning. My OS is in its own 20GB partition and until today there was about 8GB free. Today there is only just over 1GB free. Strange! I would add that any programme specific user data like pictures, sound, text etc does not get saved where Windows wants it to be saved but to a partition on the Secondary Hard Drive.

I think that my plan is going to be to try Process Monitor and if it does not point to anything, then I will try IE7 again. If that cures the problem and IE7 behaves itself then that will be that. Although I am beginning to favour formatting the OS partition and re-installing.