Errant Drop Down Menus In Vista

I have a Dell Inspirion E1505. 1.73ghz core duo, 2 gb Ram, 80gb hdd.
I had been running Linux on my laptop. It ran fine. I decided to sell the laptop and realized I'd have to re-install the Vista OS that came with the computer. After a successful install and the downloading of all updates, including SP1, I noticed a problem when I attempted to change my power options. When I clicked on the drop down menu, it showed me all the options, I chose what I wanted and when it retracted, it went through every option and then settled on the one at the top of the list. It did this numerous times. I then clicked on set to default and that worked. I had downloaded spybot search and destroy and attempted to install it. When it came to the select language portion, it was on Afrikaans (top of the list), I attempted to change it to english and it would quickly rotate through all the languages and stop on Afrikaans, again, numerous times. I googled the problem to no avail. I then figured that one of the updates had a corrupted file or something and restored the syatem to the very first point, again to no avail. I then decided to do a repair install, that didn't work. I then decided to do a complete re-install, when I get to the set the time and date, I choose Eastern Standard Time and it then rotates through all the choices in seconds and stops at the very top one. I am Lost and could sure use some help.

Are you using a mouse or the touchpad? May try not using the mouse or using a different mouse. Just a thought.

can't believe it, that **** worked...Thank YOU!!!!

Welcome.

THX> I was using a wireless mouse and it had been working fine, but who knows as soon as I read your post, I tried the touch pad and it worked like a charm...Thanks again!!!