Desk Top No-Go

Hola Darlings!

It's been snowing here since I don't know when, because I was asleep when it started.  It's not deep but it's been consistent, it seems we are getting some bands of lake-effect snow, which is never good!

I've been trying unsuccessfully since last night to get my old desktop to open it's home url - or any url.  Thank Goddess my trusty Toshiba laptop is working just fine, no problems with yahoo.com opening as my home page.  I have been searching and reading about various fixes for this problem including those at Microsoft, which I generally can't understand because they are far too technical for me.  I have tried emptying this and that, resetting this and that, unplugging the desk top from the modem, etc.  In desperation, I tried System Restore 3 times to three different dates, but that did not help.  I am still unable to open the desktop to my home page or to type in any other url (which worked on Wednesday and Thursday) since last night.  I also tried changing the default url for home page and I got a repeating feed-back loop (or whatever it is called) on that site too!  Arrrrggghhhh!  I also tried opening IE without add-ons.  Still get the same problem.

So, what I had hoped would be a productive morning creating a Chess Femme News page for the 2010 Women's World Chess Championship has been utterly wasted.  It's now nearly 1:00 p.m. and I've got jack-squat done.  I am pissed off.  I am hungry so am stopping for a quick lunch, and I have a page full of "new" solutions that I will run back upstairs to try.

My concern is how on earth to transfer the information from the desktop to the new Acer laptop I bought if I can't get get the desktop to open so I can download the necessary transfer tool to move the data from one computer to the other.  Crap, crap, crap! 

In absolute desperation, I am now going to try a MSCONFIG and hunt for anything that looks strange and delete it.  I will probably blow myself and the computer up in the process.  Sigh.  Eat first, then blow myself up...