Help, I can't use windows restore feature anymore

I can't use the windows restore feature. I get the message that a reboot is needed. However when I reboot, I believe something is changing either in the registry or win.ini file or something. All my icons are constantly rearranged on the left side of the screen. This option is not selected in windows.

I believe this problem is due to Windows Washer or some other free trial programs that were supposed to clean a number of history files. I tried deleting these programs but the problems didn't go away. Now I can't arrange and keep icons like I want them and I can't use the windows restore function. Any one know how to fix this?

Note: Before I deleted some of these programs, I noticed a dos window was opening up before possibly windows was fully loaded. I believe something is making changes and the windows restore feature keeps stating a reboot is needed because of these changes.
I am using WindowsME.

Anyone know of a good safe way to detect what may be in the win.ini file or windows registry or in startup to see what may be changing settings or autoarranging my desktop icons?

[Edited on 20-7-2004 by orionthehunter]

Just in case this may help someone who reads this I am posting a follow up message. I spent several hours trying to fix this problem. After some free online help which didn't work and even a call to a overseas (Pakistani?) Dell tech support technician who didn't help either, I found a fix myself. I'm really disappointed with Dell tech support. I know Dos commands and this not so smart Dell tech kept telling me to type in the same old dir command line again and again when I kept telling him that directory did not exist. After an hour, he ended the call by saying, "try again in two days", yeah right, that was alot of help.

Anyway to the solution I found. I read on someone's web site about using windows diagnostic tools. I lost the website when my pc started to fix itself. Anyway one tool for WinMe was to type in at the Run box (after you click on Start) was msinfo32 and then press enter.
Anyway, after looking around, I clicked on Tools, then on a line called Registry checker. Voila, it stated an error was found and immediately proceeded to restore a backup copy of my registry and then rebooted my pc. All my previous windows restore points are still inaccessible but I can use windows restore now. Actually my pc got restored back to the way it was before all my problems started to occur. I feel I got lucky.

I believe I will manually save all the important windows files using dos just in case I have this sort of problem again.

[Edited on 25-7-2004 by orionthehunter]

system restore is one of the best features of XP. A program downloaded itself while I was online and it would not let me change my homepage and it would keep trying to install other programs. I did system restore and it pruged the computer of all the crap.