I received the latest security updates and experienced problems with the XP program so I read and decided to uninstall KB896688 since my problems resembled others. I then visited the Microsoft site, downloaded the file, saved it to my hard drive, turned off my AV and then installed it. All seemed to go well until I had to restart the computer and now it locks. I can start, the windows screen appears with the icons and in the bottom right a few programs start, but then it freezes and nothing works. System Restore will not work as it goes through the whole process and then says that the restore is incomplete since nothing has changed- I could choose any date and get the same response so it's obviously turned off. I can only access the Command Prompts and have gone into APPWIZ.CPL to delete KB896688 which was causing the original problems. However, on reboot, I still freeze after the Windows screen appears and about two icons appear in the bottom right of the window on start-up.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions and they are very much appreciated.