taskbar deteriorating

[leefan]

recently, my taskbar started losing functions. at first, i thought it was ok, and i could cope with it, but now its gotten messed up even more. i dont know if this is the cause, but i installed a new video card on my computer, which requires 8x to run although my computer only supports up to 4x. a while after this, i lost the part of the taskbar that tells me what programs i am running, and have minimized. at first, i felt that this was ok, since this way, i could hide programs from my family and i could still use alt-tab. that was about a month ago. just today, almost all of my icons next to the time disapeared, as if i restarted explorer.exe, and they were not hidden. in fact, daemon tools had an error that said that it could not create a taskbar icon at start up. the only things that appear now are skype, my network status, msn messenger, googletalk, and norton antivirus. i used to have a huge list that was hidden, yet all of them cant be seen, such as volume, remove hardware safely, aim, printer status, and direct cd. what is wrong? my norton doesnt detect any viruses, yet my computer has been slowing down a great deal, and lagging a lot more. help please!

[AlanHo]

I assume you do not have a full system back-up to restore your system

If so, a sure cure would be to reformat and do a fresh install of Windows. While you are at it - chuck Norton away and install AVG or other anti malware programs of your choice. There are plenty of recommendations if you browse this forum.

Once you are up and running - take a full back up using Acronis preferrably onto a second hard drive or an external HDD - then the next time you get into a muddle you can easily and quickly restore your system.

[-pops-]

I agree with AlanHo.

Do you still have the 8x video card installed? If so, you should change it back to the original or, at least, one of the correct specification.