Although I can see all the programs I am using on the taskbar, I am unable to
restore any of them, i.e. I am just presented with a black screen and the
blue circle. I have looked at the Task Manager which tells me that
everything is 'Running' so why wont they re-appear on the screen.

Also, last night I had the Disk Defragmenter show up on the screen and,
although this is scheduled for every Wednesday, I decided to defrag. It says
that this can take from a 'few minutes to a few hours'. As I have only had
this machine for a couple of weeks I thought it wouldn't take long. However,
when I got up the following morning (some 8 hours later), it was still
defragging. Is there no way I can see what progress is being made as with XP
when it showed coloured bars. In the end I cancelled this operation.

It appears that although the blue circle is going around, nothing seems to
be happening.

Please can somebody help me?
--
Websken