Task Icons missing, erratic behavior

I have a Dell Inspiron6400 laptop wit Win XP Home, IE 7, - over the weekend I
removed programs not used for ast year, cleaned up the hard drive, and
defragmented. Now after reboot, it takes FOREVER to restart,and when it does
the task icons in the lowr right corner, some show normaly and some show as
the "Left" arrow that expands the list, when I open the list I only see "("
andhe ones that show normally do not open programs when you double click.
hen the windows auto update icon shows - I gt message that it is turned off
and am unable to turn back on from he- says must go to the system panel, and
when I go there it wi not go to Auto mode - always stays dsabled.
Oter problems alsot to system restore to reset the system - but ALL restore
points were deleted!!!! I could not even go to a previous month to find one
--Lastly when I go to IE 7 I cannot sign on like I used to it takes forever
to go to my homepage or other sites - sometime I must try 2 or 3 time to get
where I want - also I have been getting popups galore telling me my system is
infected and to try their cleaner -- I have scanned with my updated McAfee
and found no problems -- I have 2 other browsers - Netscape and Moz Firefox -
these give me minimal problems and are very speedy
I am going nuts with this - what do I do?????

315341 - How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation or Repair) of
Windows XP: http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;315341

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Mark L. Ferguson

"Alex" <Alex@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7F5E94BB-BFE4-4ED9-84B8-4CC36A68BDF3@microsoft.com...
> I have a Dell Inspiron6400 laptop wit Win XP Home, IE 7, - over the
> weekend I
> removed programs not used for ast year, cleaned up the hard drive, and
> defragmented. Now after reboot, it takes FOREVER to restart,and when it
> does
> the task icons in the lowr right corner, some show normaly and some show
> as
> the "Left" arrow that expands the list, when I open the list I only see
> "("
> andhe ones that show normally do not open programs when you double click.
> hen the windows auto update icon shows - I gt message that it is turned
> off
> and am unable to turn back on from he- says must go to the system panel,
> and
> when I go there it wi not go to Auto mode - always stays dsabled.
> Oter problems alsot to system restore to reset the system - but ALL
> restore
> points were deleted!!!! I could not even go to a previous month to find
> one
> --Lastly when I go to IE 7 I cannot sign on like I used to it takes
> forever
> to go to my homepage or other sites - sometime I must try 2 or 3 time to
> get
> where I want - also I have been getting popups galore telling me my system
> is
> infected and to try their cleaner -- I have scanned with my updated
> McAfee
> and found no problems -- I have 2 other browsers - Netscape and Moz
> Firefox -
> these give me minimal problems and are very speedy
> I am going nuts with this - what do I do?????
>