Quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda:
thank you SIX. I will write down what the third symbol means. I was afraid to really touch anything and I don't think I ran the cursor over the third symbol.

---

Quote:

---

Anyways, I am back up. Bit the bullet this morning and turned everything off then back on. And voila. But I think I've said this is a refurbished drive as was the monitor before it died earlier this year.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda:
thank you SIX. I will write down what the third symbol means. I was afraid to really touch anything and I don't think I ran the cursor over the third symbol.

---

I know Brenda. I was worried about your state of mind the last few days, and probably that feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach about it. Felt it a bit myself that night when you didn't come back and felt like there wasn't much I could do to help you. I even told Google AI that I was going to be posting things for you to try in hopes that you went to the Library first instead of taking the computer in to see somebody.

Quote:

---

Anyways, I am back up. Bit the bullet this morning and turned everything off then back on. And voila. But I think I've said this is a refurbished drive as was the monitor before it died earlier this year.

---

Oh? I didn't realize that you hadn't tried that already. I figured that was what left you in a state where the computer was still on and messed up, but you weren't able to communicate with me anymore. So I'm kind of unsure what happened now.



I'm glad you're back up and running at home.

We've got to get you a decent used laptop so you can trouble shoot from home. I think if you had had that the other night, we could have gotten you back up and running on your desktop in about 10 minutes. Especially if a hard reset actually did fix it.






About the Power symbol in the picture though...

Have you tried it?

Now that you're back up and running, you should hit CTRL / ALT / DEL and open that menu again and just click on the power button now to see the 3 options. You don't have to restart your computer now and you can just hit ESC a few times to go back to your desktop, but you should familiarize yourself with this menu.

If ever your ability to use the Start Button for shutdown/restart/etc, or the ability to use anything on your taskbar, there are several solutions to the problem that don't require a reset, but they're all fairly complex for a novice and I didn't even want to try confusing you with that stuff.

But a restart nearly always works, as long as the computer is still in good shape hardware-wise and you didn't accidentally make a change to your setup that is persistent between boots. So it's really good for you to try that a few times and familiarize yourself with the menu. It's a better way to restart your computer than holding down the power button or unplugging the thing from the wall.



--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda:
Yeah, there was dread for sure. You know me. It is hard to help when I get stuck at the library and I do appreciate you trying to help me. I didn't try that symbol but I think I said that I found that menu from your directions but didn't totally know what was what.

---

Quote:

---

I'm pretty good at keeping instructions or at least being able to find them again and keeping them.

Believe it or not I did think about unplugging it from the wall but decided against doing that. Don't ask me why but I did.

---

Quote:

---

Brenda, from TAGS: No worries SIX. I just wanted to check. I did the restart last night from the taskbar or blue menu. Everything is okay right now. I'm just nervous about it staying that way is all. I've got a notification in the little corner on the right. I got one yesterday and it froze I couldn't bring it up or it wouldn't come up until I did turn off the monitor and drive after a second time. It froze first then I had to go back out. I did that basic thing and it restarted but it froze again. Sometimes when the taskbar freezes, I hear a ping sound.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda:
Yeah, there was dread for sure. You know me. It is hard to help when I get stuck at the library and I do appreciate you trying to help me. I didn't try that symbol but I think I said that I found that menu from your directions but didn't totally know what was what.

---

I know you and I know me. I get that way over things too. I just wanted to make sure you knew somebody was here trying to help and that it'd be okay.

You should still try that tomorrow. If you want to do it when I'm around, that's cool. Just CTRL + ALT + DEL for the menu, then click on that circle power button and you can see the options to sleep, shut down or restart. It's the same options you'll get when you click power after clicking on the start button. It's just another way to do it is all. Like I said before, most things you can do in windows can be done many different ways.

Quote:

---

No, I hadn't. I was told by a couple of people that I should do that but I was nervous. Wednesday morning I was just frustrated enough and fed up enough that I did that. That is also a normal reaction from me and it goes back longer than I want to think about.

---

You should have seen my dumb monkey brain working on alcohol when I was having computer problems one night back around 2015 or so. I ended up banging on the thing hard and completely borked it. It was really old at that point and it gave me an excuse to build another computer, but it wasn't at a time where I really had much money to burn on things like that.

Quote:

---

Yeah, I know I should bite the bullet on that one too. I am still looking around to fine one at a decent price.

---

Cool.

Quote:

---

I'm pretty good at keeping instructions or at least being able to find them again and keeping them.

Believe it or not I did think about unplugging it from the wall but decided against doing that. Don't ask me why but I did.

---

I'm glad you didn't do that. It probably would have been okay, but now you're adding potential power surges to very sensitive electronics. If your wall outlets are good and you're using a good power strip with surge protection, it would probably have been fine. Don't do that though.



--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Quote:

---

Brenda, from TAGS: No worries SIX. I just wanted to check. I did the restart last night from the taskbar or blue menu. Everything is okay right now. I'm just nervous about it staying that way is all. I've got a notification in the little corner on the right. I got one yesterday and it froze I couldn't bring it up or it wouldn't come up until I did turn off the monitor and drive after a second time. It froze first then I had to go back out. I did that basic thing and it restarted but it froze again. Sometimes when the taskbar freezes, I hear a ping sound.

---

I want you to do something when you get a chance to sit down with it. You won't need to reboot until after it's done, so you can be online and doing other stuff while this is taking place. Don't freak out... It's easy stuff. Just follow my directions.



1. Press the Windows Key on your keyboard.

2. Type the letters "cmd" [without quotes] (do not press Enter yet).

3. Hold down Ctrl and Shift together, then press Enter.

4. Click Yes on the pop-up warning screen.

5. In the black window that now pops up, type "sfc /scannow" (without the quotes) and press Enter.

Wait for the percentage to reach 100% (this takes 10–20 minutes).

6. Restart the computer again and hopefully this should solve the problem.


There are other steps we can take after this if it doesn't work. This is almost certainly a Windows/Software error and your PC hardware is fine. If a system scan (like you'd be doing above) doesn't locate and fix any errors, there are ways we can have Windows go online to Microsoft's servers and Windows will actively re-download any part of the operating system that is messed up and everything should be good to go. I don't want to do that yet if a simple scan can fix the problem.

I don't think you did anything wrong here since taskbar is still janky. I thought maybe with your hand shaking you pressed some key combo you shouldn't have, but for these glitches to persist after a reboot leads me to believe there was nothing that you could have done to start this problem. Sometimes you just need to give Windows a little kick is all.


--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

---