Charlie- Can you give us some information about your system...like how much RAM you have and what operating system (Windows 7, XP, VISTA, etc.) you are using? I ask this because when things start "disappearing" like what you are experiencing it could well be insufficient resources. Joan In a message dated 7/23/2010 10:45:28 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Start button disappears when I try to click on it to shut down. I proceed to click on the shut down button and 50% of the time the dreaded blue screen appears,full of dire warnings. On next start up I find a notice from Windows that my computer is recovering from an illegal shut down. I have been shutting down computers properly for 14 years. I'm old and need help Charlie