esmeralda

Hi
Have a problem when I try to access applications through my desk top icons.
Cannot get IE up when I click on the icon, once, twice or many times, but it registers as there are several entries of iexplorer in task manager. Same thing happens when I want to access any of the icons on my desk top infact.
Could it be my mouse? or is there a problem elsewhere.
I am running Windows XP(2002) with SP2 and automatic updates with IE 6
I have defragmented the disc, last Avast scan shows no viral infections, and zone alarm & spybot say the PC is clean!!
NO recent installation of new software or downloads
According to the system I have 51% free space and 248 RAM. Should I have more RAM?
Would be grateful for any help as its driving me nuts!!

hackapelite

More ram would definitely help and make using your computer so much more pleasant experience, and might even fix the problem, though I doubt this. Try Disk Cleanup and Checkdisk tools and see if they fix anything.

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StrangleHold

Go to your Control Panel- Folder Options-General Tab- Make sure Double click to open a item is checked.

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Irishwhistle

It's not your mouse as it's able to start the iexplorer process in the task manager and (I would assume) the mouse works fine for everything else... it's probably a matter of having a slow system.

Seeing the specs of your rig (and assuming from that that you don't have a very good processor) it's VERY likely a matter of a slow system. I suggest you get more RAM, it'll boost the performance of your computer a good amount. In order to upgrade RAM go to http://www.crucial.com/ and click the "Scan My System" button. It'll scan you computer to find out the max RAM your system can take and will recommend some RAM upgrades.

Also, another thing that might help (this one is completely free) is clearing some desktop icons away if you have a lot of them and then stopping startup processes. In order to do stop unnecessary startup processes (using msconfig) follow the guide on this website: http://www.netsquirrel.com/msconfig/msconfig_xp.html

You could also have a virus slowing down your system. If you don't already have a good anti-virus program I suggest AVG Free http://free.grisoft.com/

That should help! If it doesn't just tell me and I'll try and come up with some other ideas.

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esmeralda

Thanks for those suggestions, I was thinking about the RAM upgrade anyway.
I have AVAST anti virus and the scan I did last night showed nothing untoward.
Can anyone change the startup processes. I am not a very experienced computer 'buff' but will have a go
Thanks again

Irishwhistle

If AVAST showed no viruses there shouldn't be any viruses (I haven't used AVAST much, but I've heard it's pretty good.) Yeah, you should be able to stop startup processes using that guide. Just don't stop a process unless you know what it is.

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Formerly JordanII

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