Losing some pre-sets [username, passwords, etc]

What would cause some pre-sets to occasionally disappear? One of them is my username and password for this BBS. I frequently use 2 other sites, one for investment updates and the other for Newsgroup image files. Both sites allow me to pre-set personalized lists of which investments or Newsgroups to track.

The problem seems to arise when I have maybe a half-dozen applications or folders open and have been editing some images with Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 and/or Adobe Photoshop Album 1.0 and moving them in and out of their folders. After some time all that activity can also cause things to stall. For example, I'll open a folder and click on an image to open in my preferred viewer, ACDSee 2.43, and nothing will happen for about 30 seconds. After that, the image will open and everything will work fine.

The real fun begins later, when I try to log into this BBS and am not recognized and have to re-enter my username and password. Or I'll check the investments and my pre-sets have vanished and I'll have to re-enter them. Or I'll check for some Newsgroup images and all of the 16 Newsgroups in my Personal Group List are no longer there and I have to set them up all over again. Significant or not, once Ive gotten inside those Newsgroups they seem to remember which pages and images I've checked within the recent 2 weeks.

One other wrinkle, which may or may not have anything to do with those issues. I leave my desktop on overnight so in the morning my wife can use her laptop to check for e-mails arriving through our wi-fi set-up. When I do need to shut down the desktop, I have to do the Ctrl+Alt+Del thing. Even Task Manager has problems, with 2 different windows opening and repeated End now attempts being needed before success. Something not letting go of resources?

There's only nuisance value to all that, but lots of it. I've suspected maybe I need to move from 512 MB RAM to 1 GB, but my Dell takes only very $$$ RAM, so I hope that's not the only cure. Maybe the problem is a matter of resetting the virtual memory size, or something altogether different. All my malware programs are up to date and the scans show everything being clean. For your reference, I've included my system's hardware and software in my Signature, below.

Ideas?

 

Arie: I suspected as much. What could be causing the cookies to be zapped? It only seems to happen after I've been working quite a while on a project that involves a lot of HDD activity. In the midst of it I can often hear the HDD churning like mad when I open or close one of those larger aps, as though a lot of stuff is being moved in and out of RAM. And after that is when I'm most likely to get one of those 30-second stalls. I can live with the stalling, but is there anything I can reconfigure to prevent the zapping?

Thanks for the reply.

 

The only security programs I have are the ones listed in my Signature: NAV (2005), Ad-Aware, Spybot, and ZA (free). They're all up to date and their scans show no problems that their clean-ups don't fix. And I have the Win XP firewall shut off.

As I understand the way those programs work, they catch and trap or quarantine or repair threats, usually incoming. This cookie issue wouldn't seem to necessarily be affected by those programs, because I don't have to even have my browser loaded and running when the cookie(s) gets zapped. It's when I do go on-line that I discover one or more of the sites I visit has forgotten something about me. And to make it even stranger, not all the sites that I have cookies for will be affected. Just those 3 that I mentioned in my first post. The fact that the problem is intermittent makes it even more strange. ???

It appears that what does get zapped is the sort of thing that involves the cookies at those 3 sites (as you suggest) but not my history of activity at 2 of those 3 sites. Any significance to that?

 

We seem to be back now to square one. So what is it that's eating my cookies and, even more important, what can I do to put an end to the bothersomeness?

 

Researching with Google as well as MS's KB shows lots of stuff about session cookies and persistent cookies, but nothing directly helpful. My browser's Cookie Manager shows all 3 of the sites I've been having trouble with as being able to set cookies. That assures me cookies were being set, but doesn't explain what's zapping those cookies.

A NAV scan this morning showed 0 baddies. Same with an Ad-Aware scan. A Spybot scan last night showed a few items, but after cleaning them up I still had to re-set everything at 2 of those 3 sites this morning, including this BBS.

Anyone care to share a thought?