Well good news, though news that makes me eel rather a prat.
I got a chap I know who's a professional programmer to look the thing over, and the first thing he said was, ---- this isn't xp repare, it's a virus pretending!
The programs menue was empty, which is why I couldn't run any avg, however I'd forgotten about the system tray. The chap just ran avg from the system tray, scanned documents and settings folder, avg munched the virus and now it's fixed.
I should've really been more suspicious and am kicking myself, sinse at the time, I was running a virus scan with avg, and avg detected a threat just before the message appeared telling me I had a crytical harddrive error and to restart the system.
what I should've done is ignored the message, continued the avg scan and let avg munch the virus, sinse obviously if there was a crytical error it would've been more likely to show some sort of problem han just bring up a message.
Thanksfully this means my computer is! now fine.
In terms of file restoration, that's another thing avg pc tuneup will do, restoring your drive to an earlier state and rescuing any deleted, or overwritten files, which is helpful though I've not had to use that feature up to now.
As to windows 7, there are two principle reasons I'm reluctant to upgrade.
the first, and less crytical ais that I won't be able to run doss games like fallthru or eamon delux anymore, though admittedly there aren't too many of these I play and Phil vlasac at least has stated he's going to rewrite propper windows versions of his games.
More crytically though, I'm concerned over the layout in windows 7.
For literally 15 years I've had a very strict way of laing out my start menue, desktop shortcuts and installed folders.
For instance, I only have desktop shortcts to programs I want to use shortcut keys for, such as outlook express. All my games are contained in a number of folders in my programs menue, organized by catagory, eg, one older for audio games, another for if games, another for useful programs like avg etc.
I then have further indexes by developer.
so, if I want to play Gma tank commander, i know just whre to look.
It's this aspect of windows 7 that worries me.
I don't particularly want to be troubled with microsoft's silly ribbons, most recently used this, context sensative that, and scrolling the other.
Call me a control freak, but I like to know where things are, and where I put them.
If there is a way to fully organize and group program shorctus in windows 7, without! all the silly context sensasative stuff, I'd deffinately like to know about it.
Yes, I know there is a search box, but I don't really want to have to search for stuff, I'd rather just have it with a few arrow key presses, as indeed I have in windows 95 and xp for the last 15 or so years!
With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)