When ever i startup my PC it starts up without a problem but once the desktop appears im unable to access anything except for "Task Manager".(im not sure if its worth mentioning but when i move the taskmanager window it gets "smeared" all over the screen) When i put my curser over the "Start" menu i get an hourglass icon and i cant access it. Ive tried quiting every process that i can through task manager, but it didnt help any. The last few times ive started up succesfully (proir to this problem) ive gotten error messages, which i still get now; the first one is related to norton utilies disk check, i ran disk docter a week or so ago and it said in order to fully check the disk it would have to schedule a check on the next startup, which i said ok to. The error message box says "Norton 16 bit MS-DOS subsystem" and has the file names "D:\norton~1\url\lstck.exe" and C:\windows\system32\autoexec.NT" attached to it. the message reads "The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications. chose close to terminate the application." (it has 2 answer boxes one says "close" the other says "Ignore", ive tried both to no avail.) (also, the "performance" tab from the task manager says my processer is at 1% usage... so that means its not even doing anything??? ) I have no idea how to go about fixing this problem. Any help would be great, thanx.

Try starting in safe mode & then:

1. Follow the instructions here: Error message when you install or start an MS-DOS or 16-bit Windows-based program

2. start > run > cmd
in the new window type chkdsk/f
when prompted to run on boot choose Y & reboot
this will check for & fix any disk errors.

3. Let us know if this helps.

Originally Posted by jephree

Try starting in safe mode & then:

1. Follow the instructions here: Error message when you install or start an MS-DOS or 16-bit Windows-based program

2. start > run > cmd
in the new window type chkdsk/f
when prompted to run on boot choose Y & reboot
this will check for & fix any disk errors.

3. Let us know if this helps.

Ok, I started it up in safe mode and it worked i then set up check disk and rebooted and it checked the disk although it didnt tell me if it fixed anything but when it rebooted my computer is usable!! YEA! but i still get that message about Norton not being able to run in ms-dos mode or what ever so ill try to fix that now. Thanx for the help! :-)

Thanx for the update.
CHKDSK will not make any special mention of fixing anything. The /f command told it to fix what it found.
If you followed the screen you would have seen at some point (vey quickly) what it was fixing.

Hopefully the Autoexec.nt will clear for you.