[Peter T. Daniels]

Yesterday afternoon, my desktop turned black with the icons on top,
and a popup appeared at the lower right telling me to Activate
Windows. Word continued to behave normally.

After I finished working on my document, I tried restarting to restore
the desktop and after entering my password I got a message that the
Product Key I typed wasn't valid, and I could (1) purchase a new one
on line, (2) enter a new one, or (3) ask Dell for help and support.
(The computer is an IBM.)

I haven't typed a Product Key since last year some time.

(1) and (2) do nothing; (3) opens a Windows Help screen with the
heading "Get customer support or help," and clicking the bottom option
opens IE, from which I can simply select Mail from the toolbar and
access my email, and I can proceed normally, creating new web page
tabs, etc.

The desktop remains otherwise completely black -- no status bar, no
Start button, no sidebar (with clock, calendar page, etc.).At the
lower right in white is the message "Windows Vista (TM) / Build 6601 /
This copy of Windows is not genuine"

If I Open a Word attachment from email, Word opens normally, and I can
save the file normally, and edit it normally. Everything I've done so
far has worked -- the only indication that something is wrong is that
the Word Count button in the Status Bar is grayed out.

I only can't do anything involving the Windows interface -- switch
IMEs, open a program, install fonts.

Oh, and it shuts down (restarts) after about an hour, and I have to go
through those same steps again to work in Word.

I'm scared of turning off the computer, for fear of what might (or
might not) happen when I turn it on.

I've been using Vista for a year, with plenty of automatic updates, so
I doubt this is a legitimate MS phenomenon.

I can't find my distribution disk (still). I have the WinRE disk
downloaded for me the other day. (Can that have been the source of the
problem? Is the Product Key accessible by BOOTMGR? Why would it have
waited a week to show up?)

My chosen Windows screen saver kicks in at the appropriate time and
seems to continue to function even after the restart (so that when I
look at the screen, the box for typing the password is what I see.)

If a cure is available by downloading and clicking Run, presumably I
can do it. If I would have to save something and then start it, I
don't think that's possible.