I go to add/remove programs in the Contol Panel and all looks fine. There is the list of all the programs on my computer. I begin to scroll down the list, when about halfway down a large solid black area appears. Keep scrolling and the black area breaks up into wide black lines. Scroll down farther and the second half of my programs appears looking normal. If I click on this black area, the white area around it turns blue. This black plague doesn't seem to effect anything on my system, but it SURE is annoying and shouldn't be there.  Tried system restore to no avail. Tried changing user accounts to no avail.  Tried sfc /scannow, again to no avail. ANYONE have any ideas as to this Black Plague? Could it be virus? try a trend online scan.........or a  over heating problem?Why do you call it Black Plaque?

Have you scanned for Viruses, Trojan Horses and Spyware? If yes, what scanners are used?Raptor - could be a virus. I use Norton Antivirus 2005. Hear it doesn't always detect everything. Also have us of Microsoft Anti Spyware, Spybot Search and Destroy, Spyware Guard, WinPatrol, Ad-Aware. Been wanting to try AntiVir Personal EDITION 6.27 (maybe a good time to start). Will try an online scan.Virus scanners
AVG Free
-- Anti virus scanner
Trend Micro Housecall
-- Online anti virus scanner.Raptor and merlin_2
 Ran Trend Micro's Housecall, came out clean. Guess a virus isn't the problem. Been told I should do a recovery. This problem doesn't seem to be spreading, so I will try to avoid doing a recovery to try to fix one panel out of hundreds that has a problem. Appreciate your suggestions. Have tried them.  If you have any other suggestions outside a full recovery I will try those also. Thanks.Have you scanned for Spyware as well?

Anti spy/malware
Microsoft Antispyware
-- Anti spyware scanner. Windows XP Home and Professional only.
Spybot Search & Destroy
-- Anti spyware scanner
Adaware SE Personal
-- Anti spyware scanner

If spyware scanners discover nothing, try using REGISTRY scanners:

Easy Cleaners
-- Freeware registry scanner
Registrar Lite
-- Excellent replacement for Windows Regedit
Crap Cleaner
-- Freeware registry scanner/history cleaner

Caution is advised when using these programs!
Create backups of all important FILES before proceeding.see if this typed in the runbox sorts it REGSVR32 APPWIZ.CPLmerlin_2 and Raptor,
 I don't think it's spyware. I run Microsoft Antispyware, Spybot Search and Destroy, and Ad-Aware, daily. Also have Spyware Guard, Hijackthis, and WinPatrol on duty. I'm also fairly adept at Registry editing (been forced to remove programs manually, amoungst other things). Always backup the registry before any editing. Run RegClean and ASO's Advanced Registry Optimizer about once a month. But merlin_2, this REGSVR32 APPWIZ.CPL is new to me. I typed this in run and it came back to me with "DllRegisterServer in APPWIZ.CPL succeeded". I have no idea what that means??
Could this be the problem?? Thanks both of you for sticking with me.Have you tried the scanners as well?http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q266668
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I'm also fairly adept at Registry editing