Download, install, update and run both Ad-aware and Spybot Search and Destroy.  Links to both of these as well as tutorials are available here.  You have some sort of spyware that is causing this.

Thank you very much for replying to my post. Please bare with me because I don't know much about dealing with PC problems, but I already have version 5.62 of Ad-aware and I always am afraid to use it to delete anything on my PC because I'm concerned that it might damage the registry. I've noticed that Ad-aware has a backup feature that I really don't know how to use. I will take your advice, but before I do, is there a simpler and safer way to fix my problem without dealing with the registry? And if I do download the latest versions of those programs that you suggest, where will I put them since I can't access My Documents where I usually download programs to. Again thank you for any advice.

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@MGF55 wrote:
Thank you very much for replying to my post. Please bare with me because I don't know much about dealing with PC problems, but I already have version 5.62 of Ad-aware and I always am afraid to use it to delete anything on my PC because I'm concerned that it might damage the registry. I've noticed that Ad-aware has a backup feature that I really don't know how to use. I will take your advice, but before I do, is there a simpler and safer way to fix my problem without dealing with the registry? And if I do download the latest versions of those programs that you suggest, where will I put them since I can't access My Documents where I usually download programs to. Again thank you for any advice.

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Your version of Ad-Aware is severely outdated.  It is at version 6.181 now.  You should uninstall the old version and install the new version.  The new version will put items in quarantine so you can restore them if needed. 

You don't have to download these to My Documents.  You can download them to any location you wish.  I create a folder on my system called downloads that I download everything to.  You can download them to the Desktop if you wish as well. 

I am speculating that your problem is spyware.  If you run ad-aware you will find out how much you have.  If you have a large list of registry entries then it is likely that spyware is at least part of your problem. 

I have never deleted anything with ad-aware that caused any problems other than making my system run better.

 

Try Method 2 here.  You should also go ahead and run Spybot Search and Destroy again and delete all the "red" items.  Also download and run ad-aware.  Make sure both are updated before you do so. 

Please forgive me for not posting this earlier but I was hesitant to wear out my welcome on this board. I downloaded Spybot S&D and updated and ran it and deleted all the problems it found(over 300 of them)and it fixed my original problem, and everything was working perfectly, until I decided to do a ScanDisk, Disk Cleanup, Defragment and cleaned out the Temp folder. But now when I double click the My Documents and My Computer icons I get the Search for Files and Folders window instead. Also when I try to access the Control Panel through the Start button I get these 2 error boxs "This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Create an association in the Folders Options control panel." and "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item." I recovered everything that Spybot deleted through Spybot Recovery except those having to do with VX2 but it didn't fix my new problem. I'm at a loss what to do next. Does anyone know?

It should be in C:\Windows.  Make sure you can view hidden files and folders.  Open My Computer.  Select Tools>Folder Options and click the "View" tab.  Make sure the "Show hidden files and folders" is checked.

Thank you Yellowhammer for your help. I tried method 2 but when I searched for Control.ini it did not show up in the search results. Only 2 results named Control without the ini showed up. I also updated and ran Spybot again and deleted all the red items. I am unable to uninstall my old version of Ad-aware because I can't get to the uninstall program in the Control Panel, so I didn't download the newer version yet.