Thanks for all the help, unfortunately nothing worked!, there is a weird thing going on now though. If I go to Start/Programs/Internet Explorer and double click, all works fine, I am using earthlink as my ISP and wonder if the problem is with them because when I log on it automatically starts IE7. Very strange problem. Did a HijackThis log and posted it online and no-one seems to be able to help..wondering whether to do a Hard Disk clean and reload all my software, do not want to go down this road but....