COMPUTER NOT RECOGNIZING HARDWARE ANYMORE

[esther1980]

The other day, I suddenly lost connection to the Internet and was
 unable to sign in. This turned out to be a problem with our firewall and our
 service provider finally rectified it for us. However, I have
 subsequently found that the computer has stopped recognising our hardware
 (scanner, speakers & printer) which all previously worked fine. Also, the
 start menu and task bar on Windows have changed as well as the Screen
 Saver and the computer is not registering anything I change in the Control
 Panel. I am pressing Apply and OK. Can you help me as I really need to
 be able to use the printer etc! Thanks very much!

Computer is Packard Bell, running on Windows XP. Currently using Norton Antivirus & have just started using AVG Anti-Spyware. Remaining RAM 512MB.
Am not very computer literate so if anyone can help, would be very appreciated!

Thanks

[Comp Guy]

Is Norton up-to-date?

[kuszmania9999]

is it fine in safe mode?

[GX1_Man]

Is this a shared network printer or is it attached to the computer?

Go into Control Panel/System and see if there are any exclamation marks and report back.