Vista - what's the hangup?

I have developed a seemingly impossible program:
On any application, when I save for the first time, or save as, the window opens to select where to save (documents, usually) but the cursor becomes a little white circle and if I click in the window, it says not responding at the top. The only recourse it to stop it either from task manager or repeatedly clicking the close icon.

Vista 64 Home Premium SP1 Intel Core duo E750, Nvidia Geforce 8800 4 gig ram.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
ps:this is a new problem that just happened in the last few weeks

Thanks,
TODD M

The easiest way to sort this out may be to do a System Restore to a point before this happened, see tutorial: System Restore - How to

All updates installed after that date would have to be installed again, and any program installations made would disappear, but as the tutorial says, your personal files would not be affected.

If you prefer to troubleshoot to find another solution, beware that, as time goes by, you may find you have no system restore point old enough.

I'm afraid that has already happened. I foolishly deleted sys restore points to reclaim some space. I guess there is always a complete reinstall, but I was hoping for some kind of fix as I'm not as savvy as some.

When facing these odd issues, it may be a good idea to first look for malware. Otherwise troubleshooting could go on for ever. Would suggest trying with SuperAntiSpyware. When installing, case you already have an antivirus program, do not enable real-time protection and do not integrate with Vista Security Center. Just have it as an on-demand scanner. Scan from Safe Mode.

Another simple thing to check, not that I think this is the case, is whether the folder you are trying to save to is write protected. Easiest is just to copy something and paste it into the folder.

That "save" dialog is displayed by code inside the "common controls" DLL - comctl32.dll.

You might want to try:

- Running SFC /SCANNOW to check whether that system binary or others are perhaps damaged.

- Booting to safe mode and checking whether the same thing is evident there. If not, that suggests the problem is caused by something which only runs in normal mode (but not safe mode), and selective startup with MSCONFIG or "Autoruns" may help find the culprit.

- Uninstalling your anti-virus, anti-malware, and any non-default firewall utilities temporarily. There's a chance they're responsible.

Thanks for some useful help. Without people like you(s) willing to take the time, people like me who learn as I go just couldn't get anywhere.

A couple of things:
I have downloaded Super Antispyware and ran it (all of these in safe mode as well as not)
In safe mode I CAN save/as to my documents folder. One more thing that I never mentioned: if I open a new program on the desktop (anything... notepad, whatever) I could always save it with no hang - to the desktop.

PS I also tried SFC /SCANNOW in safe mode with no results.
I will now try the tedious task of using MSCONFIG and removing one item at a time to narrow it down. Any hints on just where to start?

Again, Thank you so much

If it only affects Office programs, it may be worth a try to repair the installation. Go to Control Panel - Programs - Programs and Features and single click on the Microsoft Office entry. Then choose change (above the list) and run a repair. You may loose any special settings you have made.

To test the selective startup with MSConfig (clean boot), read this.

Some interesting things have happened. At first I thought it was Office programs and ran the repair option to no avail. But Now with the seemingly minimal things I have done Office programs completely open the save save/as menu and succeed on saving to documents. WordPerfect Quatro Pro does however not. In addition some of my graffic programs: PantShop Pro, which default the Pictures folder continue to hang.
I'm at my whits end as to what I DID and what I did not pro.

PS I also have Spybot Search and Destroy as well as Adaware, having run them in safe mode and in regular mode

Thanks,
TODD