What is causing this and how do I fix it, see details?

The only thing I can think of would be to restore from the last good restore point. Windows Vista is actually pretty good about this.

Here is a great walk-through on how to tackle this. Good luck!

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-windows-vista-system-restore/

i would first try to uninstall flipshare when you are in safe mode. system restore might not let some important data live.

I can’t get to uninstall in safemode… (am I doing something wrong?)

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Uninstall-or-change-a-program

you might want to make sure that you have admin rights when you try that.

what you also might want to do is to see if there have been any system errors logged.
when on your desktop, right click “my computer” click “manage”
in the upcoming console, unfold “eventviewer” and then “system”.

Have you scanned for malware, exploits, virus, etc ?

@ragingloli and @blister thanks for all the info,

@virtualist yes, I did a complete scan and we’re up to date on our protection (I have a 20something step son at home that uses the lap-top, I’m not taking any chances!)

@ragingloli I did check the event log, the only things in there were related to were IEXPLORE.EXE errors

go to Run… and run chkdsk C: /R