my start bar on my comp keeps freezing and going blank what is that about and how can I fix it?

Answer 1

If this is on XP, and happens on initial startup let it sit for 10 mijns it should pass.
Reboot and AS SOON as you can doa CTRL ALT DEL to get the task manager up, click processes.
If SVCHOST goes to 99% and starts chewing up dozens of megs of ram you got the known issue on Microsoft updater, so turn off Microsoft update at the moment, and use "Windows update" off the MS site for now.

Try it again in a month or so once they fix it.