Sony Lap-Top Playing Silly Sods.

[Nick]

I've heard you say that before, Nick, which is why I was loathe to do it. I certainly wasn't panicking as it's been going on for a while, so long in fact that I couldn't remember when which meant that a system restore wasn't an option.

Apologies if I sounded "preachy" - its not intentional - I just want to cry when people resort to "solutions" involving re-installing the planet - its a double whammy - a waste of time and no understanding gained of the underlying issue so you are doomed to "ground-hog day" if/when the problem re-occurs...

I'm glad you resolved the issue - I should have thought of that myself - the 5 minutes before everything returns to normal bit was the giveaway...

FWIW, I (along with almost everyone else) hate Vista - its very slow, buggy & memory hungry. If you can stomach it, a switch to Windows 7 (VGN-NR21J/S seems to support that) or Windows 8.1 would probably be a good plan...