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OK so my momma managed to do all sorts of stupid crap to her computer this morning, most of which i've helped her resolve, but there's one thing i can't figure out: there's this inch of space across the top of her screen that is just no longer usable--windows won't maximize all the way and she can't put desktop icons in it or anything. i'm including a screen shot so you can see what i mean. wtf did she do and how can we fix it?

it looks like the space reserved for the windows magnifier

what is that and how does she make it go away

Yeah, it does look like magnifier, only glitched.
It's an Accessibility option for people who have a hard time seeing.

Leah, try this:

(I'm assuming this is WinXP btw - that's what the desktop looks like)

hit CTRL ALT and DEL to bring up the Task Manager, click on the PROCESSES tab, and look for a program in the listing called "magnify.exe"

If you see that, click on it to highlight it, then click on the END PROCESS button on the lower right, then close the Task Manager.

If this is a no-go, let us know.

here is what is in her processes list (doesn't it seem like a lot??)

take the PC away from her

haha i would LOVE to! but unfortunately that's not an option, so we need to figure out what we *can* do.

oh my jeezuz jiminy christmas

What Tikker said

"A lot" does not even begin to describe...

(edit) Ok, wow... um, do this first:

Close all program windows that are up so the only thing showing is the desktop.

Then, open task manager again, and start by "end processing" IEXPLORE.EXE, WINWORD.EXE, SMOOTHVIEW.EXE, ZOOMINGHOOK.EXE, EXCEL.EXE, GOOGLETOOLBAR... , PHOTOSHOPELEMENTS...

Let's start with that and see if the blank window thing closes.

zoominghook.exe is your culprit

ok after ending processes and a good ol' reboot, the porblem is solved!! :D thanks guys!!

now, is there some sort of site or program that she can use to sift through her processes? preferably something verrrry user-friendly hehe

Excellent

Um, sort of - it is mostly user friendly, but still requires that you know something of the names of the things you are turning off.
By the way, I highly suggest this to eliminate the clutter of processes.

START -> PROGRAMS -> RUN

type in "msconfig" without the quotes and hit OK.

In the window that pops up, click on the STARTUP tab.

This will list most of the things running in the background and will show where the files are located, who they belong to (program-wise), etc...

Look for the items you want to NOT start when Windows boots up:
Note: Things like IEXPLORE.EXE (Internet Explorer) should never load upon bootup... if it is, run a virus/malware check pronto.

Uncheck all the items you want to not start up. If you aren't absolutely sure what the item is, DO NOT remove it.
Things like Winword, Excel, Outlook, and any other MS Office files are fine to uncheck.
Things like MSMSGS (MSN Messenger), Yahoo, Google - all fine to uncheck.

You don't need ANY of those things to load as the computer is booting up - removing them from startup does nothing to their usability.

When all done, hit OK, then let the computer reboot.

By the way, is this a Toshiba laptop computer? I'm curious because a lot of the processes are specifically for use with one, and if it's not, I can tell you what else you can turn off.

msmsgs.exe can either be the very very original windows messenger that came w/ windows XP that you should delete (it's currently called msnmsgr.exe), or it's a virus that's part of W32.Alcarys.B@mm virus

if you have MSMSGS and not MSNMSGR you should run a registry scan to see what folder it's affiliated with to determine if it's a virus or not

i use uniblue suite to keep my registry clean but they have a free registry scan on their website http://www.liutilities.com/products/cam ... ib/rbplib/

if you've never scanned or defragged your registry specifically, you might have over 500 errors when you use that program for the first time. definitely recommend torrenting or buying uniblue because it's saved me from having to reformat for a long, long time