When I open a program it does not display the program on the taskbar. This means once a program has been minimised the only way I can access the program is to use ALT-TAB. How can I get the programs to appear in the taskbar? The computer is running Windows 98.

This symptom is a sign of the Friends Greeting virus being installed on the computer. This was a threat several years ago when there was a mass mailing of electronic greeting cards to email addresses, requiring software to be downloaded to view the card. One of the features of this virus was hiding programs from the taskbar. Fortunately, it should be relatively easy to remove this threat from your computer. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Settings’ > ‘Control Panel’ and open the ‘Add/Remove Programs’ control panel. Uninstall both the ‘WinSrv Reg’ and ‘Friends Greeting’ (or ‘FG’) programs from the computer. Once these have been removed, restart the computer. Then, you should do a complete system scan with a virus scanner to check for any other threats which may be present on the computer. If you don’t currently have a virus scanner, you can download the excellent AVG Anti-Virus Free at: free.grisoft.com . Be aware, if you are unable to remove the two programs you may need to restart into Windows Safe Mode and do the uninstallation through that mode. To boot into Safe Mode, restart the computer and when the ‘Starting Windows 98′ message appears (just before the Windows splash screen), start tapping the F8 key. In the menu that appears, select ‘Safe Mode Only’ and press ENTER. Once Windows has finished booting, complete the uninstallation and then simply restart the computer to boot back into Normal mode. For more information on the Friends Greeting virus, check out securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.friendgreet.worm.html and us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=description&virus_k=99760 .

As a side note, you are currently running a very old operating system (Windows 98). Microsoft has now ceased support for Windows 98, including all security updates. Therefore, I would strongly recommend you upgrade to a more secure version of Windows, such as Windows XP or Windows Vista. As your computer may not be able to handle these newer versions of Windows, you may also wish to consider updating your computer.