Unfortunately I am having some difficulty understanding the nature of your problem, particularly because the error message which has been provided is not an exact quote but instead a paraphrase (making it a bit tricky to research the problem). As such, we will look at some generic solutions which will hopefully resolve the problem. In the first instance, if the text that you are attempting to copy and paste (or drag and drop) contains graphics then it is possible that Word does not have sufficient resources on the computer to copy that content. While this is fairly unlikely (unless the graphics are very, very large) if you are running Windows 7 on an already resource constrained computer then this could be a genuine possibility. Try copying smaller sections of text to see whether the problem also presents itself. If not, then you may need to copy and paste smaller sections of content to avoid this problem from occurring, or use the software on a computer with more available resources.

In any event you need to ensure that you are running Word with all the latest updates. Most likely, Word came bundled with Microsoft Office so I suggest that you visit Microsoft Update (update.microsoft.com) to see whether any updates are available for Office and the software contained as part of the package. In particular, if you have not recently updated then it is likely that Office is missing the latest service pack updates which could resolve this problem, should it be an identified bug within Office.

Another cause of the problem could be some third-party program or process running in the background on your computer. To test this theory, close all other visible programs running on your computer (including those in the system tray). Then, press CTRL-ALT-DEL to show the Task Manager window. Click the “Processes” tab that will list all processes which are running on the computer. You should see a “User Name” column which shows which user account the processes are running under. Close all of the processes which are running under your user name, with the exception of the “explorer.exe” process (which is the Windows graphical user interface) and the “taskmgr.exe” process (which is the Task Manager that you are currently using to close the processes). Once all the processes with the exception of these two are closed, check whether the problem continues. If not, then one of those processes is the cause. At this point I would suggest restarting your computer, so that all the background programs and processes reload, and then close the programs and processes one-by-one, each time checking whether the problem stops. Once the problem stops you know the most recently closed program or process is the cause, and then this provides us with more information so that we can investigate a more permanent resolution for the problem.

It is good that you are naturally wary of software which you cannot identify and do not recall installing yourself. Doing some research, Funmoods seems to be a way to add emoticons (icons showing emotions, such as smiley faces and such) to messages. They also appear to operate a search service which seems to be the issue that you are encountering. It can often be tricky to assess the legitimacy of such services since they often install bundled with other software, so it is likely that during the installation of something else there was a tick box asking whether you wanted to install Funmoods Search and you did not opt-out. Nevertheless, it seems that Funmoods Search should be relatively straight-forward to uninstall as they provide instructions on their website for installing the add-on. They have provided a video tutorial which is available at funmoods.com/english/faq#a6 that provides details on how the Funmoods application can be completely removed from your computer. Alternatively, you can also remove Funmoods by going to the Start menu > “Control Panel” then click “Uninstall a program” and proceed to uninstall the Funmoods application from your computer.

While the uninstallation should hopefully succeed in removing Funmoods from your computer, some users have reported that the uninstallation does not necessarily remove it entirely and it can still remain present in your browser. For this situation we need to take some additional manual removal steps. We will first deal with the manual removal from Firefox. Open Firefox and go to the “Tools” menu > “Add-ons”. This will show the Add-ons window that gives you three different panels: Extensions, Appearance and Plugins. Look through each of these panels for any reference to Funmoods or associated programs. When you find some kind of add-on that is related to Funmoods, click the button to either “Disable” or (preferably) “Remove” that add-on so it no longer runs with Firefox. Once you have disabled or removed all add-ons related to Funmoods, close the window and restart Firefox. When the browser restarts hopefully the add-ons should no longer load, meaning that Funmoods no longer is the default search for Firefox.

However, even though the add-on has been removed it is possible that Firefox is still directing you towards Funmoods Search. This could be because the Firefox configuration for the search provider was not reset to its default following the disabling or removal of Funmoods from Firefox. This is particularly the case if you are searching by typing a term directly into the address bar, rather than using the search box, and are still being directed to Funmoods Search. In this case we need to take more drastic action involving editing the Firefox configuration. Open Firefox and in the address bar type “about:config” (without the quotes) and press ENTER. A warning message will appear informing you that you are about to enter the Firefox configuration, which could have adverse side-effects. Acknowledge this message – just be aware that we are going to be changing Firefox configuration settings so be careful and proceed at your own risk. Assuming that you wish to proceed, once you are in the configuration, at the top of the page there should be a filter bar which allows you to filter the settings that are displayed below (as you can see, there are quite a few settings, so finding the specific one that you want could be a difficult task without some ability to filter). Type the following into the filter bar: “keyword.url” (without the quotes). Below the filter you should see an entry appear for the “keyword.url” setting. Right-click on this setting and select “Reset” from the context menu that appears. This will reset the setting to its original default value. Restart Firefox and the problem should now be solved.

We will now move onto removing Funmoods Search from Internet Explorer. Open Internet Explorer and go to the “Tools” menu > “Manage Add-ons”. This will show the Manage Add-ons window that allows you to modify the various add-ons installed within Internet Explorer. In the first instance, we should check the search providers to see whether Funmoods has installed itself as this kind of add-on. Within the Manage Add-ons window select “Search Providers” (on the left-hand side of the screen) and check whether any references to Funmoods (or other search providers, that you do not recognise) are present. If so, select the search provider and then click the “Remove” button at the bottom of the window.

Even though we have removed the search provider(s) it is possible that other components of Funmoods are still installed in Internet Explorer, such as a toolbar or like. Remaining in the Manage Add-ons window now click “Toolbars and Extensions”. As the name implies, this will list all toolbars and extensions that are installed into Internet Explorer. In the right-hand pane look through the list for any items which are related to Funmoods. Should you find such an item, select the item and then either click the “Disable” or “Remove” button to remove the particular item from Internet Explorer. I also suggest that you repeat this procedure for the “Accelerators” add-on type, although it is fairly unlikely that Funmoods would have installed itself in this category of add-on. Once all this is done, click the “Close” button and then restart Internet Explorer to check whether the problem continues.

It may be possible that the problem does continue because add-ons in Internet Explorer are more deeply integrated into the Windows operating system, given that Internet Explorer is part of the operating system, potentially making them harder to remove (compared with a browser such as Firefox or Chrome, which are separate programs that operate independently from the computer operating system). Therefore, if the problem does continue after you have gone through the prior steps in the Manage Add-ons window, we may need to attempt a complete reset on Internet Explorer. We did not attempt this procedure previously mainly because it is quite heavy-handed and will reset many other things, such as customised settings in Internet Explorer. However, it will also disable third-party add-ons and is our next best option in order to remove Funmoods from the computer. In Internet Explorer go to the “Tools” menu > “Internet Options” (if the menu bar is hidden then you may need to tap the ALT key on the keyboard to show the menus). In the window that appears, select the “Advanced” tab and at the bottom of the window click the “Reset” button. A warning message will appear informing you about the implications of resetting Internet Explorer. As you can see, this is a fairly comprehensive procedure that will disable all Internet Explorer add-ons and restore the browser to its default settings – exactly what we want to do, given that you wish to remove a persistent add-on from the browser. I also suggest that you tick the “Delete personal settings” box to reset all possible settings. Once you have read the message, and understand how this will affect your computer, should you wish to proceed click the “Reset” button. Once the reset has completed, restart Internet Explorer and check whether the problem continues.

Should the problem continue after following this procedure then the solution is going to be quite a bit more involved than originally anticipated. In this situation please contact me again for further advice.

This situation can be confusing as the error messages are not very user-friendly and are quite complex to understand. Before we go into an explanation about troubleshooting this problem we should take a moment to understand what is happening. Web pages operate over a system known as HTTP or Hypertext Transfer Protocol. HTTP is a so-called “stateless” protocol. This means that the protocol (HTTP – the way which information is transferred over the web) does not keep track of anything to do with the user as they visit different pages. By way of example, if you open an email in webmail (which requests and displays a particular page in the web browser) and then do something else, such as compose a new email (which requests and displays a different page in the web browser, but from the same server – i.e. your webmail server) the server treats these as two completely separate requests and does not pass any information between requests. In other words, from the server’s perspective each request is completely independent and has nothing to do with any other requests. An analogy would be having a conversation with someone and then immediately forgetting about that conversation, so the next time you speak with the same person you have no knowledge of your previous conversation.

This presents an interesting challenge, particularly when logging into websites. When you login to webmail there needs to be some way for the webmail system to keep track of the fact that you are logged in, otherwise whenever you do something within webmail (such as click a button) and send a new request, the server does not know that you are logged in and will re-prompt you for your username and password. Obviously this is not particularly optimal, since if you are doing a lot of operations in webmail (such as writing emails, replying and moving email messages around) having to login every single time that you do something would become fairly ordinary, fairly quickly! At this point things are probably sounding quite familiar with your situation, so keep reading.

The way that the webmail system can keep track of you, and the fact that you are logged-in, is by using a combination of sessions and cookies. A session is a record kept on the server, generally in a database. This usually records your IP address, time of last activity (so if you don’t conduct any activity in a certain period of time it can automatically log you out), and also a session ID. This is usually a long random series of characters that uniquely identifies your session. However, this doesn’t help much unless the server can match that session ID back to your web browser. To achieve this, the server provides your web browser with a cookie. This is a small piece of data which is sent by a server (such as the webmail server) and is stored in your browser. The server can then request this data back when needed. In the case of our login system example, the cookie will store the session ID. So, the workflow goes as follows. When you initially login (successfully) to the webmail system a session record is created on the server, with a session ID, and then the server provides a cookie to your web browser, also containing the session ID. Then, whenever you visit a page within webmail the server requests, the cookie is sent back. It matches the session ID in the cookie to a session ID in the server database, and then does an additional security check to make sure that your IP address matches the session record (just to make sure someone hasn’t stolen the cookie from your browser and is masquerading as you, an attack known as session hijacking). Assuming that everything matches-up, the server can assume that you are authenticated (and are who you say you are) and processes the request. However, if anything doesn’t match then it assumes you are not authenticated and will re-prompt you to login again.

So, things probably now make a bit more sense and it seems that the server is rejecting you as an authenticated user because it thinks that your IP address has changed (and no longer matches your session record on the server). However, given that this always happens, and it takes you several attempts to login back to the computer, it is highly unlikely that your IP address is constantly changing since IP address changes generally require your internet connection to be disconnected and reconnected, which you would likely notice given that it seems to be happening on a fairly regular basis! At this point my hypothesis is that your browser is not correctly accepting the cookie provided by webmail and probably either not sending the cookie back, or returning a malformed or corrupted cookie. The error messages you are receiving are likely to be generic messages that give us a general indication of the problem, although not a complete accurate explanation of the root cause.

In the first instance you should try using a different web browser to see whether the problem continues. At the moment I assume that you are using Internet Explorer, so I would recommend that you download and try either Mozilla Firefox (www.mozilla.com) or Google Chrome (www.google.com/chrome) since they both are completely separate from Internet Explorer (and one another) and will allow us to tell whether the problem is computer based or browser specific. I imagine that you will find that the problem stops when you use webmail in a different browser, indicating that something with Internet Explorer is the problem.

You could always continue using the different web browser to access webmail, and you may even find that you prefer that web browser and wish to keep using it to access other websites. However, we should also look at fixing the problem in Internet Explorer since it is possible that sooner or later you may need to use Internet Explorer to access webmail. First, it would be useful to try a complete reset on Internet Explorer. Open Internet Explorer and go to the “Tools” menu > “Internet Options”. In the Internet Options window that appears, click the “Advanced” tab. At the bottom of the window click the “Reset” button. Carefully read the message that appears, as this process will result in quite a few of Internet Explorer’s settings reverting to their defaults. To ensure that we tackle this problem on all fronts I would also suggest that you tick the box to “Delete personal settings”. Once you understand and are happy to proceed, click the “Reset” button. Restart Internet Explorer (if this does not happen automatically) and check whether you can successfully login and use webmail. Should the problem continue then please contact me again for further advice, as it seems this particular issue may possibly require more troubleshooting.

We will now move onto the situation where the problem also occurs in other browsers, and it is not limited to Internet Explorer. This requires us to think more widely about the potential problem, since cookies are browser-based and most system related issues should not affect the ability of a browser to accept and process the cookies. The first potential cause could be third-party internet security software running on your computer. Often these will intercept network traffic (as part of their privacy controls) and inspect the traffic, particularly cookies. Such internet security utilities could also integrate into the web browsers on your computer to provide this functionality. This is because cookies can also be used to track which websites you visit and also how often you visit particularly websites. Without knowing whether you have any such security software installed on your computer it is difficult for me to provide specific advice, but if you do have such software installed then as a test you could temporarily disable such privacy functionality (making sure that you keep other important functions, such as antivirus, enabled) and see whether the problem stops. If so, then you may need to fine-tune the settings in your security software to allow cookies from the domain (web address) providing your webmail so that these do not get blocked in the future.

Another suggestion is to do a scan of your computer and make sure that no malware or viruses are present. It is possible that malware could have targeted your browsers, preventing them from correctly sending back cookies. That said, this is a slim possibility simply because the problem only seems to occur when visiting your webmail site and no others. Otherwise, if this was malware or virus related then it is likely to be affecting all websites that you visit and require a login.

Should you find that the malware scan returns clean, the final procedure that we should attempt is trying a different computer on your internet connection. Even though we previously discounted the internet connection as a potential cause, at this point we are running out of explanations so it would be worthwhile checking all possibilities. Since you have a wireless internet connection I assume that would be connected to your computer via USB, which would hopefully make it easy to connect into a different computer and then use to see whether the same problem occurs when visiting your webmail site. If you find that it does happen on a different computer, this is something that you would need to discuss with your ISP since it seems network related. On the other hand, should you find that the problem does not occur on another computer then it is still specific to your computer. In this case, please feel free to contact me again for further advice.

The TPSMain.exe process is related to the Toshiba Power Saver utility that is likely installed on your computer. The error that you are receiving does not seem to be particularly uncommon, as my research into the issue shows that quite a few other users have also experienced this same error. Unfortunately the fix for this problem does not appear to be as common though, as different users managed to solve the problem in different ways. The second error that appears regarding the “tpsoddctl.exe” file is also related to the Toshiba Power Saver utility. It is interesting that both errors seem to be caused by the same missing file – CpuPerf.dll. Since this problem seems to definitely involve a missing or corrupt file there isn’t much we can do to fix the issue as-is, but will instead need to try reinstalling the relevant utilities to see whether the required files can be copied back across to your computer.

It is likely that your computer came with recovery CDs or DVDs, given that it is a brand name computer. However, we may not be able to use these to reinstall the Toshiba Power Saver utility – it depends on how the recovery CDs have been designed. Some computers come with two CDs – one contains the operating system (in your case, Windows XP) and the other contains the drivers and associated utilities (e.g. Toshiba Power Saver) which are needed for your computer. In this case you can use this so-called “drivers and utilities” CD to reinstall the specific drivers and utilities used by your computer. However, some computers ship with a single (or set of) DVDs that contain an image of your computer – this is essentially a perfect/model installation of how the computer should be configured, and that is duplicated to your computer hard drive upon installation. The image contains the operating system together with all the drivers and utilities already integrated, so the installer just needs to literally “place” that onto your hard drive. If your computer came with such CDs then you cannot use these to reinstall individual drivers and utilities since they are all integrated into the image on the recovery CD, so you would instead need to completely reinstall (or “reimage”) your computer which would result in all your personal data and programs being lost, since your hard drive would be overwritten with the contents of the image on the recovery CD.

You should be able to tell which type of recovery disc set your computer comes with by reading the manual. Alternatively, if you have a CD that is named “drivers and utilities” (or alike) you could try inserting that into your computer to check whether it gives you the option to install specific drivers and utilities. Just make sure that if there is an option to completely restore your computer that you don’t click that button, since it will likely result in the entire contents of your hard drive being wiped and then overwritten with a fresh installation of the operating system from the recovery CD! However, should you find that you cannot reinstall the drivers and utilities from the CD then we can also download those from the internet. Additionally, if you are unsure whether you can reinstall from the recovery CD then there is no harm in simply downloading the new utilities from the internet instead.

In either case, before we commence the reinstallation you will need to uninstall the existing utilities from your computer. Go to the “Start” menu > “Control Panel” and open the “Add or Remove Programs” control panel. Look through the list of programs until you find an entry for the “Toshiba Power Saver Utility” (or alike) and then proceed to uninstall the utility. Once that has finished reinstall the utility from either the recovery CD that came with the computer, or download a fresh copy from the internet. You should be able to find a new copy of the utility by going to the Toshiba website (eu.computers.toshiba-europe.com) and selecting “Support & Downloads” > “Support homepage” > “Download Drivers” and then search for your particular model of computer. Once you have sourced the utility reinstall it on the computer and check whether the issue continues.

If the problem does continue then unfortunately I have been unable to find any other way to fix the problem. In this situation our next step would be to disable the “TPSMain.exe” and “tpsoddctl.exe” processes from loading on startup, so that the error messages stop appearing. At the moment these utilities do not seem to be starting anyway, since they are encountering errors, so assuming that your computer is still running without any problems at the moment we should be able to completely disable them from starting up. Go to the “Start” menu > “Run” and type “msconfig” (without the quotes) and click OK. In the System Configuration Utility window that appears select the “Startup” tab. This lists all programs and processes that load on Windows startup. Look through the list until you find entries for these two utilities – you may need to expand “Command” column so that you can see the actual process name (and look for “TPSMain.exe” and “tpsoddctl.exe”). Once you have found the entries for these processes untick them and then click the OK button to save and close. Restart the computer and the error messages should no longer appear since the processes are no longer running on startup. However, be aware that a message may appear notifying that the computer is running in “selective startup” mode. This simply means that you have selectively indicated which processes should load on startup. You can safely dismiss this message and tick the box to not display it again in the future.

These are two very good questions, particularly regarding the availability of updates for Windows XP once it reaches the end of its extended support period. For those users who are unaware, on 14 April 2009 Windows XP entered the extended support period (the last period in the Microsoft support lifecycle) meaning that while security updates and hotfixes are still offered, other support (such as free technical support) is no longer offered. On 8 April 2014 all support for Windows XP will be terminated, meaning that no new security updates or hotfixes will be offered. However, from what I have read in my research, existing updates will still be available for download from Windows Update – just no new updates will be released. As such, it should not be necessary to locally cache the updates prior to Windows XP entering extended support since the updates should still be available through Windows Update.

However, it is very important to note the implication of Windows XP ending all support. In particular, that no new security updates will be released for the operating system. This is a very important event since it could potentially leave your computer vulnerable to new attacks, which some malicious users may try to find and exploit given that they know patches will not be released to fix such security issues and that it is likely that quite a lot of people may still be using Windows XP (so there is potentially a large audience which could be affected by such attacks). Therefore, I would strongly recommend that you upgrade to a new version of Windows (such as Windows 7) prior to Windows XP support ceasing, or alternatively purchase a new computer which is capable of running a newer version of Windows which is still supported. This will help ensure that your computer remains secure and can receive security updates.

Your second question regarding some websites being able to determine your location is very interesting. Quite a few readers may have noticed that when visiting a website advertisements appear saying that you can find, for example, special deals on some product in Canberra. Rest assured, in most cases, this is being done based upon your IP address which is publicly available to the website. As your IP address is actually owned by your ISP it is possible to do a reverse lookup on the IP address and obtain the name of the owner (i.e. your ISP). From that information the web server can then determine the city in which your ISP is based and modify the advertisements accordingly. As an example, if you were using the internet in Canberra, but your ISP is based on Melbourne, then most likely the advertisements would be modified to include the name of Melbourne. You may have seen in various TV shows and movies where they do a lookup on an IP address and it returns the actual name and address of the user themselves – this is fake and not possible, unless you do happen to own the IP address which is very unlikely (and you would certainly know if you did, since you would have needed to purchase the IP address yourself which is quite an involved process!). When doing a IP address lookup you can only go as far as the owner, which in most cases is your ISP, so that is how they are determining your location.

There are some new websites which use HTML5 that includes the ability to use a GPS in your computer (if available) or device (such as an iPhone) to determine your actual location, for purposes such as navigation. If this happens then a prompt will actually appear in your browser seeking permission. Of course, if you do not want to grant permission you just click the Deny button and that will prevent the site from seeing your actual location.

Of course, it would also be worthwhile to do an antivirus and antimalware scan of your computer just to make sure that there is no malicious software installed that could also be checking your location.

Usually when such errors appear the title of the error message window provides us with some useful information about the source of the error. In this case, the error is reported to be occurring in the MOM.exe file. The bad image error indicates that something is wrong with a particular library or extension that the process is attempting to open, essentially meaning that the process (in this case, MOM.exe) is trying to load some additional resources which are required for its functionality but there is some kind of problem. As you can deduce, the file which it is attempting to load is “diasymreader.dll”. This file is related to the Microsoft.NET framework. While this probably doesn’t mean that much to you, the .NET framework is a development environment in which many Windows programs are written. In order for programs written in the .NET framework to function correctly on your computer they need certain support files, with the “diasymreader.dll” file being one of those required files. In most cases these files are DLL or Dynamic Link Library files which provide common functionality required by many programs. The advantage of separating these files from the program themselves (rather than building and including all the functionality provided by the library into each and every program that requires this functionality) is mainly for reusability and efficiency. In the case of some DLLs, the functionality provided is required by almost all programs so there would be a great inefficiency to include the DLL functionality separately in every single program. Instead, the functionality can be encapsulated and stored once on the computer (in the DLL file) and then the programs which require the functionality can simply reference and access that DLL file on the computer. This avoids unnecessary duplication of the functionality and related code, and also makes it easier to update the DLL with improved functionality or bug fixes in the future (as that one DLL file just needs to be updated, rather than having to update every program).

As you can see, DLL files perform a vital function on the computer. On your computer there are literally hundreds or thousands of DLL files which perform specific functions and tasks that programs can hook into. This is also why if you accidentally delete or remove any DLL files this will likely result in problems for lots of programs, since many programs generally use particular DLL files and removal or tampering with those files can result in some substantial problems.

Returning to your question, we have established that the MOM.exe process is attempting to use the “diasymreader.dll” file but there appears to be some kind of problem. Furthermore, it is likely that this problem extends further since other programs on your computer have also stopped working. This could also be due to the “diasymreader.dll” file or perhaps other DLL files (that we are not aware of) have also been changed. In any case, we will first deal with the MOM.exe process and then move onto other programs. When you say that the problem started “following a recent update” I assume that you are referring to running Windows Update. In this case, it would be a fair assumption that the .NET Framework on the computer was updated together with the associated DLL files such as “diasymreader.dll”. Given that the update was sourced from Windows Update we should be able to rule-out a corruption in the update, or any kind of malicious payload, since the updates that come from Windows Update are reliable and authoritative. Therefore, my next suspicion is that the process which is using the .NET Framework (in this case, the MOM.exe process) is having compatibility issues with the update causing the error. This is not uncommon and while software developers do their best to avoid future compatibility issues it is always possible that an update to linked libraries (such as DLLs) can break functionality within programs, despite the best attempts of the DLL authors to ensure that backwards compatibility is retained. So, our first procedure should be tracking down the purpose of the MOM.exe process and then checking whether any updated versions of the process (or program which the process uses) is available.

Doing some research on the MOM.exe process yields quite a bit of confusing and conflicting feedback. Some users report that MOM.exe could be a malicious process (from a virus or other malware) whereas there are also reported legitimate processes that use the MOM.exe name. This kind of confusing situation is not uncommon because when dealing with file names as common and short as MOM.exe they can often be used by many different parties for many different purposes (both legitimate and illegitimate). Even though you have done this already, I would recommend that you again download the latest antivirus definition files for your virus scanner and then complete a full system scan to check that your computer does not have any viruses or malware. Assuming that you are confident in the abilities of your antivirus product then this gives a good indication that you should be safe. However, if you are not overly confident and would like to try some alternative scanning utilities there are two which I recommend. For a free solution, Microsoft Security Essentials (windows.microsoft.com/mse) is a free antivirus and antimalware product provided by Microsoft. Alternatively, if you would like a more fully-featured antivirus product then ESET NOD32 Antivirus (eset.com.au) is an excellent product. Both Microsoft Security Essentials and NOD32 Antivirus have a small footprint on your computer, which should not overly affect your system performance – which is a very good and important aspect that quite a few other antivirus products lack.

Assuming that your system comes-up clean we should be relatively safe in assuming that the MOM.exe is not related to a virus or malware on your computer, so we will turn our attention towards legitimate programs or processes that could be causing the problem. When searching on the internet for “MOM.exe” the most common explanation indicates that it is related to ATI graphics cards and functions as a monitoring application for the Catalyst Control Center (which is the dashboard or configuration utility for the graphics card). It starts to make more sense why this error is now occurring on startup, since the Catalyst Control Center also likely loads on startup together with its associated processes (such as MOM.exe to provide monitoring of things related to the graphics card). Interestingly enough, other users have reported the “MOM.exe – Bad Image” error with other DLL files as well, which could indicate that the program is sensitive to changes in related files (as a result of updates) for one reason or another. In any case, most users have reported that the problem can be resolved by updating the drivers for your graphics card. If you are using an ATI branded graphics card then visit the AMD support website (as AMD now owns ATI) located at support.amd.com . At this site you should see a heading at the top titled “Catalyst Drivers & Software” with a link below to “Download Catalyst drivers”. Follow through the screens to find the drivers for your particular graphics card. Once found, download and install to check whether this clears the problem being experienced.

Should the problem continue then there could be an issue with the installation of the .NET Framework on your computer which the updater did not detect – so as far as Windows Update was concerned the update process was successful. In this situation it could be worthwhile to try downloading the .NET Framework installer and attempting a reinstallation of the framework. You can download the installer from the Microsoft website at www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17851 . Be aware, this is an online installer so you will download a small setup file from the Microsoft website which will then connect to the internet (during the installation process) to download the remaining portions of the installation.

In any case, by this point the problem should be resolved either through updating the ATI drivers on your computer or reinstalling the .NET Framework. If the problem has not been resolved by this stage then please contact me again for further advice.

However, the good news should be that once the problem has been resolved for the MOM.exe process it should have also fixed the issue for other programs experiencing difficulty. You mentioned that following the update one program that would not run is Media Centre Master. Some of the posts I found on the internet when researching the problem referred to Microsoft Media Centre encountering problems with the “diasymreader.dll” file (the same file causing problems with MOM.exe) so it stands to reason that because there are issues with the graphics card (or a DLL which is being used by the graphics card) that perhaps other programs which are highly graphics dependent (such as Media Centre applications) also experience similar problems.

Finally, regarding the other issue that you mentioned about the System Restore points completely locking-up the system, this is likely to be an unrelated issue since it concerns something misbehaving with Windows itself. We could dedicate an entire answer to this particular problem since a quick search of the internet reveals many potential causes. Therefore, I would suggest that it would be worthwhile doing a Google search (or like) for terms such as “system restore freeze Windows 7” (or variants thereof) to see whether any of the suggestions assist with resolving the problem that is currently presenting itself on your computer. If not, then please contact me again.