Lately I purchased VC++ 6. It worked well for a while until it suddenly ceased to function at all just a few days ago.

Here is what happens: Visual Studio opens and runs well enough. I can open a project, edit code, and so on. I can execute my program - let's say it's called "MyDirectXGame.exe" (Win32 applications are what I am dealing with here). My program runs like it should. But when I close the application I have made, everything falls apart. The whole system slows to a crawl; the mouse and keyboard either freeze completely or become very jerky.

I open Task Manager (CPU at 100% - no surprise there) while this is happening and find the source of the problem. "Applications" is empty, as it should be, but under "Processes" I find a process called "MyDirectXGame.exe". Apparently, the program I made is still running, even though I closed it.

This is not a problem with my hardware - I am working with a high-performance PC.

This is not a problem with my code - it happens with Microsoft sample projects too.

My VC++ 6 has not always been like this - apparently something triggered this change in behavior.

My ideas for what might be causing this (though I still have no idea):

- I am running NetZero, which has lately been very temperamental.

- I am running WinXP Home Edition, which was made before VC++ 6

- I have a vague suspicion that visual studio might be
trying to run as if it were on Windows NT.

- The last thing I did before the problems began was to install Norton
Antivirus. I quickly found out that by disabling this I was able to
get NetZero to work again. However, Visual Studio still has
crashing problem with Norton disabled.

- Before my problems began, I manually inserted several DirectX
header files into Visual Studio's "VC98" "Include" file. This caused
no immediate change in behavior, but it could presumably be a
cause.

Please help me out!

Thanks,
synth