Thanks James, I would suspect you are right about doing updates before installing programs, but on the advice of a Microsoft engineer, I tried the programs I use most for a while, before the Windows updates, to see if there were any problems with any of the programs after a fresh start. Stupidly I changed the colour depth again, but I hadnt thought to tell the Microsoft engineer about that. I am notoriously bad at remembering to do Windows updates, so usually there are a lot to download when I do it, and I wouldnt normally uninstall all my programs before doing it. Other than the very necessary, about 3, my background running programs are all disabled in System configuration utility, and this is the first time Windows update has proven to be a problem. I would agree on 32 bit colour depth, you should be able to change to that, and the information I got on user exe only says changing to 32 bit can cause problems with user exe, by changing back to 16 bit, file checker was okay. That of course doesnt mean to say all will now be fine, if my particular machine was one that didnt like the change, then other problems could still be lurking. My point is that you shouldnt have to change Windows settings to assist one program, all others work okay where previews are concerned. I tend to think if everything is working okay for the majority of programs then leave the Windows settings alone, I just wish I had stuck with that rule this time. My graphics card is Nvidia GeForce4 MX, and I am on Windows 98. Thanks also Irene, unfortunately I was unable to do anything other than put the computer recovery CD in, nothing was working, and I could not uninstall anything. Dave