My laptop has changed and cannot do system restore

[oceanauk]

I don't know what's happened, I think possibly a virus or spyware, but icons have disappeared from my taskbar, like AVG7 and registry values have changed according to AVG's scan - but I tried to do a system restore and there were no dates at all - help!!! My system is slow and programs are not working properly and I don't know how to restore it now to the way it was working a few days ago. This all started when I tried to download quicktime and I had to remove because it wouldn't work - any ideas please?? Thank you

[oldbob]

Hard to advise when you don't even tell us what operating system you are using. Assuming it's winXP, if there are no restore points you cannot restore your computer by this means. If you can set the BIOS to boot from the CD Rom, you can insert your WinXP installation CD into the drive and the machine may boot on that. Depending on the version the install CD may give you the option of "repair" or "re-install". Try the repair option first if available. It may pay to run a Adware program such as "spybot search & destroy" and an on line AntiVirus such as http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ before you try a repair.