Hi to everyone in this forum. I joined this forum a couple of days ago, mainly to see the type of problems (if any) members are having with the Windows7 operating system, and to see if there is any mention made of the problem that has recently started with my system. After having a quick look I have seen similarities, but not exactly what I am experiencing. Amongs the no doubt many experts amongst our members there might be someone who can steer me in the right direction to solve this problem (short of formatting my drive etc). I recently purchased the 3-user Windows7 Home Premium upgrade package, which I used to upgrade my Vista Home Premium Installation on the Desktop computer (I also have a laptop with Windows7 HP installed, but no problems there sofar). About a week or so ago I started having problems where when I left the computer unattended for a while, when I came back the icons on the desktop had disappeared (leaving the background image) and I had no access to anything short of restarting the computer. Upon restarting all was back to normal but then sometime later the same problem came back....ad infinitum. I have not as yet timed the interval between the occurance of the problems which I'll attempt to do next. I have been wondering if this could possibly have anything to do with the message that Microsoft posted about shutting down systems every two hours unless a certified copy of Windows was installed (which I have done and activated). Sorry about the longwinded post, but I am hoping someone out there can help. Cheers....Schwartz