I have a Gateway sx2840-01 running Windows 7. It has a Core i3 530 cpu, 6Gb of RAM and a 1 Tb hard drive. I'm using Norton Internet Security 2010. On Friday we set up a second computer running Windows 7 and established a homegroup. The new computer is an HP HPE-400z with an Athlon II X4 635 cpu 6Gb of RAM and a 1Tb hard drive. When we set up the new computer we removed an old Dell that had been on a workgroup with the Gateway. These are the only recent changes to the operating environment I can think of.
I'm having three problems that seem to have arisen simultaneously: I can't run Internet Explorer with Flash Player installed, I can't download and install either Chrome or Firefox, and System Restore either fails or introduces new problems.
I wish I had made notes of my attempts to fix the problem, I'll make as complete an accounting as my memory allows.
I first encountered the problem with Internet Explorer, when I tried to start it it froze and I got an error message to the effect that Adobe Flash Player Installer/Uninstaller 10.1 r102 had stopped working. I uninstalled Flash Player and Internet Explorer started normally, when I reinstalled Flash Player the problem recurred.
At this point I decided to switch to Chrome, but Chrome was behaving oddly too, specifically I couldn't make any edits to my bookmarks. I decided to uninstall and reinstall Chrome. Chrome would not reinstall. I attempted to install Firefox, same problem. In both cases the installer seemed to run normally, but nothing happened. As an experiment I tried to install CCleaner, same problem. However I was successful at reinstalling Flash Player.
I then tried to do a System Restore. It failed. I tried an earlier restore point. The system seemed to think this was sucessful but it left my desktop background black, and I found that Windows Media Center would not run. Undoing the System Restore brought things back to square one.
I'm utterly baffled by this and will be most thankful for any help anyone can offer me.
Ray Sim
