My father gets all the weirdest and most interesting problems with his computer... and then, of course, he turns to me for help, and usually it's something I've never heard of before, and probably caused by some random software gizmo he downloaded, that I just tell him to format and reinstall.

This time, though, it's on a fairly fresh (about a month and a half old) reinstall, and he says he hasn't installed any new software lately. So I thought I'd ask for a bit of help before telling him to reformat.

For the last few days, when he closes a program, about half the time it hangs for 10-30 seconds before closing. The program window disappears, but is still in the taskbar, and nothing at all can be done (no buttons will click, no programs will open, no keys will press) until it disappears. Afterward, if, for instance, you've clicked every icon on the desktop in frustration, most of what you tried to do during this brief hang will all happen at once. The Task Manager's performance tab doesn't show any unusual activity during the hang. And even the Task Manager will cause this hang when closed.

Any ideas about what might be wrong?

Could try running CClean, Eusing Free Registry Cleaner, both free, run the Windows cleaner, and defrag. Also he could try running Repair off the Windows CD. Telling him to keep doing clean installs sounds like what I used to do with one of the grandkids that used to live with me and she eventually learned to quit downloading and installing crap from the Internet. A kid's revenge Advantage of me knowing more than my kids and grandkids about computers

Could it be related to a driver update? I managed to get him to admit the one new piece of software he has installed lately, an automatic update for either his HP scanner or printer.

He ran defrag, and that didn't help. I've been through his add/remove programs list, and there's nothing weird lurking there.

It's possible it could the printer or scanner. My experience with printers, especially HP, is the best thing to do is completely delete the software and drivers. To do this, go to the HP support site because there is usually additional software that is needed as well as some files from the Registry that need to be deleted. Once you reinstall everything and it's working, tell him not to update anything unless he's having a problem with one of the devices. If you haven't done so, wouldn't hurt run Windows Repair off the CD before reinstall the HP stuff. Problems deleting programs really sounds like a Windows problem. It really sounds like your dad needs 2 computers. One that he only does Windows updates on and only installs the programs needed. The 2nd to play around with, i.e., download programs he wants to try and if there are no problems, download to machine one. I do this, have a machine I use strictly for work, on-line purchases, bill paying, etc, and 2nd I use for video editing, testing programs, and try different settings. If I run into a problem with the 2nd machine, while a pain in the a$$, at least I still have the other machine.

Thanks for the help, folks... he solved the problem. It was the Google Toolbar.

I thought I'd convinced him a couple of years ago that the Google Toolbar was just begging for trouble. I also thought that when I said, "What about the Google Toolbar?" that he'd heard me. Apparently not. He said he didn't think it counted as strange downloaded software.

So, problem solved, until the next time he installs that dratted thing. Sorry for wasting everyone's time...

Thanks again!

Glad that's all it was. Guess you shouldn't let us old folks have computers

Well, for a guy who's in the second half of his seventies, he's a heck of a computer whiz. He just has a few incredibly bad habits I can't seem to get him to break. One of them is installing the Google Toolbar.

I figure once you hit your 60s you have a right to your bad habits and others just have to tolerate them. The advantage of getting older