Weird Computer Problem--Help?

Okay, I have a bizarre problem going on with my computer, and need some help—specifically, an issue regarding Internet Explorer. Yesterday, everything was fine. Apparently, at some point, Dad allowed a Windows Update and it did something, (although it didn’t record it under Add/Remove for this month) and now we no longer have an address bar at all. Even though I’ve gone in and looked, and it’s still checked as being there.

It won’t let us go back a day to when it was there. Just to this morning, which is when the problem started. It’s a major pain, since now I can’t get anywhere without having a link. It was a lot of work to get over to Insanejournal, since I had to hunt through this journal until I found a link that happened to go to a group over there.

According to Spyware Doctor, it’s not a virus or Trojan doing it. Does anyone know how to fix this? We have Internet Explorer 6, I believe. If I could get over to Yahoo Answers, there might be something there…

ETA: Okay, got into Microsoft Updates, and I can see that an update was indeed done this morning. Anyone else been having issues from this? Or something similar?

ETA 2: We can’t get into the Control Panel using the Classic Start menu option, according to Dad. After a moment, he showed me exactly what he meant.

This means that when you right click the task bar, select properties, select start menu, and select the option of Classic Start menu—which is what we normally have—and then go and click on Control Panel, it won’t open at all. So it definitely sounds like an Windows Update issue of some sort, since everything was fine yesterday, and we hadn’t downloaded anything new--except for the update, apparently.

Weird Computer Problem--Help?

Okay, I have a bizarre problem going on with my computer, and need some help—specifically, an issue regarding Internet Explorer. Yesterday, everything was fine. Apparently, at some point, Dad allowed a Windows Update and it did something, (although it didn’t record it under Add/Remove for this month) and now we no longer have an address bar at all. Even though I’ve gone in and looked, and it’s still checked as being there.

It won’t let us go back a day to when it was there. Just to this morning, which is when the problem started. It’s a major pain, since now I can’t get anywhere without having a link. It was a lot of work to get over to Insanejournal, since I had to hunt through this journal until I found a link that happened to go to a group over there.

According to Spyware Doctor, it’s not a virus or Trojan doing it. Does anyone know how to fix this? We have Internet Explorer 6, I believe. If I could get over to Yahoo Answers, there might be something there…

ETA: Okay, got into Microsoft Updates, and I can see that an update was indeed done this morning. Anyone else been having issues from this? Or something similar?

ETA 2: We can’t get into the Control Panel using the Classic Start menu option, according to Dad. After a moment, he showed me exactly what he meant.

This means that when you right click the task bar, select properties, select start menu, and select the option of Classic Start menu—which is what we normally have—and then go and click on Control Panel, it won’t open at all. So it definitely sounds like an Windows Update issue of some sort, since everything was fine yesterday, and we hadn’t downloaded anything new--except for the update, apparently.

Definitely A Windows Update Problem...

It's definitely a Windows Update mess, because I've discovered that it has also messed up things in Outlook Express. Formerly, you could just look in the e-mails and see everything perfectly fine. Now? Well, looks like any picture (for example, of cookies from Saralyn's Cookies since I get updates from there) has been turned into numerous attachments. One for the picture of the cookies, one for the picture of the logo, one an htm file, and one a notepad file.

So things I've noticed wrong so far:
-The address bar is missing, and will not come back even when I use the steps I've found that are supposed to bring it back.
-The Outlook Express strangeness I've just described.
-The thing Dad mentioned, of the Control Panel not working if you're using the Classic Start menu option.

There may be more, but that's just what we've noticed so far. Any ideas on how to fix this? I'm currently using IE 6 for Windows XP (service pack 3). Should I install 7, or uninstall 6 and then reinstall? Or would that make things even worse?

Dad says he tried to go back, but it won't let him go back any earlier than this morning at 6:30 AM.

Definitely A Windows Update Problem...

It's definitely a Windows Update mess, because I've discovered that it has also messed up things in Outlook Express. Formerly, you could just look in the e-mails and see everything perfectly fine. Now? Well, looks like any picture (for example, of cookies from Saralyn's Cookies since I get updates from there) has been turned into numerous attachments. One for the picture of the cookies, one for the picture of the logo, one an htm file, and one a notepad file.

So things I've noticed wrong so far:
-The address bar is missing, and will not come back even when I use the steps I've found that are supposed to bring it back.
-The Outlook Express strangeness I've just described.
-The thing Dad mentioned, of the Control Panel not working if you're using the Classic Start menu option.

There may be more, but that's just what we've noticed so far. Any ideas on how to fix this? I'm currently using IE 6 for Windows XP (service pack 3). Should I install 7, or uninstall 6 and then reinstall? Or would that make things even worse?

Dad says he tried to go back, but it won't let him go back any earlier than this morning at 6:30 AM.