Hi all
You guys have had some great answers and advice in the past, so hoping for some of the same tonight! ;-)
Very quick background, I built a new PC a few months ago. It is running 32bit XP Pro, I have a RAID 0 which my OS and Programs are on, a RAID 1 that my files/data are kept on, and a backup HD that I just keep whacking backups over to.
The problem started a few weeks ago, when Adobe Acrobat started having weird launch problems, to the point where I ended up deleting it, as the only part of Creative Suite CS4 that I don't really use as of now. I can't 100% remember the error, as figured I'd come back to it at a later date.
Next thing to happen, a week or so later, was that iTunes stops working after every turn off / turn on, or restart. i.e. iTunes is set up, all updated and working fine, until I turn my computer off. When I turn it back on again it hunts for some setup file, then says it can't find it, and refuses to open. I have to delete iTunes via Add/Remove, then install it again. At this point, on first opening it, all my music and settings are there fine, but once it's been turned off again same problem. This is a real pain in the ass even more so than usual as I have an iPhone now, so backing up is taking a while each week!
Finally (I think), Office is doing a similar thing - it has been installed since first building the PC and working fine, but now each time I open any Office program after a restart it goes through some stage of installation again, and asks me to to activate it over the internet, yet again.
Help, what's happening??!!
I don't think I've installed any new programs, bar program updates, and it just suddenly happened over a couple of weeks. It was working fine for a few months beforehand!
I am relatively PC aware, but a long long way from expert, so have no idea where this problem is coming from - which has made Googling it impossible! It's like it forgets all its setup info at startup or shutdown, and has to start over again. NB, my AVG anti-virus is up to date and running Malware Bytes shows a clean system. Oh, that reminds me, I also had to turn off XP monitoring of my anti-virus, as around the same point as all this started XP started telling me it wasn't turned on or up to date, but it was running perfectly.
A PC 'dude' at work has recommended a repair install of XP, but reading so many scare stories I've chickened out.
Help, PLEASE!!!! This is driving me mad. I'm so desperate, it's eating up so much of my time!!
You guys have had some great answers and advice in the past, so hoping for some of the same tonight! ;-)
Very quick background, I built a new PC a few months ago. It is running 32bit XP Pro, I have a RAID 0 which my OS and Programs are on, a RAID 1 that my files/data are kept on, and a backup HD that I just keep whacking backups over to.
The problem started a few weeks ago, when Adobe Acrobat started having weird launch problems, to the point where I ended up deleting it, as the only part of Creative Suite CS4 that I don't really use as of now. I can't 100% remember the error, as figured I'd come back to it at a later date.
Next thing to happen, a week or so later, was that iTunes stops working after every turn off / turn on, or restart. i.e. iTunes is set up, all updated and working fine, until I turn my computer off. When I turn it back on again it hunts for some setup file, then says it can't find it, and refuses to open. I have to delete iTunes via Add/Remove, then install it again. At this point, on first opening it, all my music and settings are there fine, but once it's been turned off again same problem. This is a real pain in the ass even more so than usual as I have an iPhone now, so backing up is taking a while each week!
Finally (I think), Office is doing a similar thing - it has been installed since first building the PC and working fine, but now each time I open any Office program after a restart it goes through some stage of installation again, and asks me to to activate it over the internet, yet again.
Help, what's happening??!!
I don't think I've installed any new programs, bar program updates, and it just suddenly happened over a couple of weeks. It was working fine for a few months beforehand!
I am relatively PC aware, but a long long way from expert, so have no idea where this problem is coming from - which has made Googling it impossible! It's like it forgets all its setup info at startup or shutdown, and has to start over again. NB, my AVG anti-virus is up to date and running Malware Bytes shows a clean system. Oh, that reminds me, I also had to turn off XP monitoring of my anti-virus, as around the same point as all this started XP started telling me it wasn't turned on or up to date, but it was running perfectly.
A PC 'dude' at work has recommended a repair install of XP, but reading so many scare stories I've chickened out.
Help, PLEASE!!!! This is driving me mad. I'm so desperate, it's eating up so much of my time!!