many problems

my wife's computer exper. several problems at once.

1. her favorites disappeared from ie

2. icons disappeared from desktop- ex.- system mechanic

3. some of her pictures are gone

System Mechanic strikes again I see. Look in that program if it has (and it should) "restore defaults" or something in that fashion and if it works get rid of it fast. Another remedy that might work is System restore to the time before that event. In any case, don't use those "snake oil" programs.

When will people finally realise the limited value of, and potential harm from, '3rd party system tweaking tools' a la System Mechanic...

Leave Windows (especially newer incarnations) are pretty good at managing resources. The occasional annoying things it does are generally obvious and easily fixed without recourse to 3rd party SW or tinkering with the registry etc...

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

It happened after gen update-sm would not have deleted its own icon- the ex.ment example not except.