Safe Mode with networking
 

That is the only way I was able to start my laptop tonight. Very frustrating. Each night it seems to be getting worse. Why would this work in safe mode only? How can I find out what is wrong and fix it? When I start Windows normally, the explorer bar was not starting properly. Then when I try to shut it off, or restart it, it hangs up on the shutting down mode, never shuts down. I end up hitting the power button to turn it off. oh, I have Vista. Does that make a difference? I can't run any diagnostics in safe mode. Or can I?

Any suggestions?

Scan the machine for virues and malware. Something is trying to hook into explorer/internet at startup and is making a mess of it.

Yours
Zweiblumen

aslo, run MSConfig, go to the startup tab and click disable all, apply then restart your computer. See if that works for you.