This is weird. On my win98se machine the icons will randomly change themselves. FOr example, a word document .doc will change its icon to some other weird one, like ones that u would find deep within windows system folder or the like.

The other problem is that there are times when the left mousr button wont work...a window wont close. You see the little "x" depress its self without even having pressed the button. Its a lil weird. a system restart seems to fiz this problem temporarily, but it comes back randomly. I've run spybot but found nothing /removed nothing that has any relevance (or so it seems.)

the keyboard and mouse are Logitech cordless desktop about 3 years old. Batteries hav been replaced. Anyone know what this could be?

It's definitely a spyware/malware/virus/trojan related thing, I'd believe. You'll need to use more than spybot to dig out the culprit(s)

yeah, but ive run it a million times with the update etc. Maybe, perhaps, u DO read Hijack This logs? im only half kidding, Okie, ill try the other ones and ill see what happens thanks