I have 'puter probs

Something happened to my computer over the weekend. (I use a Sony Vaio laptop.) It froze up on me Friday after I downloaded a program from a Wal-Mart CD of pix I had taken with an instamatic camera and had developed at Wal-Mart. (I'm giving you all this detail because I don't know whether the download did or didn't have anything to do with the freezeup.) I had to hold down the power button to shut the machine off because it wasn't responding to any other type of command.

Next morning, I could not start the computer. It would go through all kinds of agonizing attempts at start-up, then show a blank screen. And continue to show a blank screen. Somehow -- don't ask me how, I don't know -- I finally managed to get an image on the monitor last night. In other words, the computer is now working, after a fashion, as I type this. But here's the prob: I can't open hardly any programs at all, not even off-line programs like solitaire or chess. I can access Internet Explorer and get onto A2K that way. But even on IE I have no sound. I access an NPR site and everything comes on except the music or news.

Details: at the bottom of my screen I have a message which says Internet Protected Mode: On. When I put my cursor on it, it says "Double click to change security settings." I can double click til the cows come home; no menu drops down or pops up. Next to this is a little white-on-red X mark (the Cross of St. Andrew, by gum!). I put my cursor on that and get "Phishing Filter cannot check this web site..."etc. Need I tell you that clicking on this icon, double or single, achieves exactly zero results?

So I can't get into the MS security file to get off this "protected mode". All my computer can do at the moment is get me to A2K and enable me to use e-mail. Oh, if it makes any diffrence, I have a broadband cable connection.

Someone, pls HELP.