Ive been using win7 for about 6 months now. Before that I was using xp for 15 years.
Im having problems with:
1-Search; the status bar gets to 99% pretty fast, then it's literally hours before the search finishes. Why?
2-Ive been using firefox for over 10 years now. I always set it to download files to the desktop. However, win7 sometimes buries the downloaded file in different locations
as in C:\Users\paul\AppData\xxx Which I can find after hours of searching. Sometimes to a temp file, which is not available the next day. (I always wait at least 24 hours, then run a AV scan on all downloads). Other times its on my desktop, where it should be. Why?
3-Another issue of less importance is that i have taskbar autohide, just like when I used xp. I also usually leave one or more instances of win explorer open and system set to reopen them at boot. This worked great on xp, however, on win 7, the taskbar is displayed and each button for each instance of win exp flashes and taskbar will NOT auto hide until I click each button. That's an annoyance.
thanks for any help,
paul
Im having problems with:
1-Search; the status bar gets to 99% pretty fast, then it's literally hours before the search finishes. Why?
2-Ive been using firefox for over 10 years now. I always set it to download files to the desktop. However, win7 sometimes buries the downloaded file in different locations
as in C:\Users\paul\AppData\xxx Which I can find after hours of searching. Sometimes to a temp file, which is not available the next day. (I always wait at least 24 hours, then run a AV scan on all downloads). Other times its on my desktop, where it should be. Why?
3-Another issue of less importance is that i have taskbar autohide, just like when I used xp. I also usually leave one or more instances of win explorer open and system set to reopen them at boot. This worked great on xp, however, on win 7, the taskbar is displayed and each button for each instance of win exp flashes and taskbar will NOT auto hide until I click each button. That's an annoyance.
thanks for any help,
paul
It's a good idea to use a clean-up tool such as CCLEANER to help with the junk accumulating on your hard drive from regular browsing on the Internet. Many customers have never cleaned their hard drive since they owned their computer, and the excessive build up of many files severely slows down windows processes such as search.
There are many viruses that target each browser, and there is a whole slew of them that target Firefox specifically.
You should scan/remove all viruses found using your built-in AV scanner program. Additionally, you should download the free Malwarebytes antispyware and scan/remove all spyware viruses found. Malwarebytes detects many spyware viruses that regular AV programs cannot detect including Norton, Avast, McAfee, Trend Micro, etc. Retest your Firefox after removing viruses/malware. If the problem persists, your computer probably needs a tune-up and you should pay to have that professionally done. If that's not an option or you live on an island where there are no repair shops, you can test your hardware using my link here: 
If I had your computer on my workbench I would test that hard drive thoroughly and then do a Windows reset/reinstallation. My link to follow will give you instructions on how to test your hard drive. That's the most likely culprit. 
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79° here.
If not, go back to my troubleshooting link post and follow my instructions to test your hardware and repair your software.
