any ideas yet anyone...I can use the alt key and F4 but I then lose the music I listen to..when all is right I can minimize the screen and still listen to the music and do other thing with my PC...I'm wondering if an up-date recently did something to remove the house icon and the music control bar...If I can't find a solution here I'll have to go to HP for help and I think they would just have me re-load the application but then sometimes that causes more troubles so I thought some one else here might have had the same issue or mayb some of you might have the same issue but don't know it yet because I don't use the touchsmart appl. that much.

as far as I know I have all the latest updates...if you know where I can find the one your talking about can you post the site...I always check the HP TouchSmart Touch Optimizer Update at this site and I don't see anything that pertains to my trouble, but I may be over looking what I should look at..this is the site I go to..
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?os=2100&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=e...
thanks for any help you can give me.

thank you so much...this all just happened about a week ago and I have always checked for the HP updates and download them...I did the download you suggested and all is back to normal now...either I never got that update from 2008 or it wasn't presented as an update when I ran the HP update which I do at least once a week...I have also checked the HP site once in a while to see if there is anything there I should get...I always figure if it ain't broke, don't fix it so if I'm not having a pituclar issue I shy away from downloading every thing I see...I suspect maybe the last windows updates or the HP update from a few weeks ago might have turned off some of my apps. since they were working before...thanks again Diane...much appreciated.