This didn't do the trick unfortunately

Sorry, all I meant was it might be another example of where you might see those "ON/OFF"s. I probably got mixed up with your preceding post.

The usability options are the place to start - however that type of on or off text is intended for those with sight difficulites where an option setting is "Read the Text and thats the path to explore in those options - in other words have you set the option for the user to use an external program to "Speak the highlighted Text"

regards

Yeah the ON and OFF's are also showing up in Internet explorer in the Internet Options and advanced tab. I've restored those to default in case it was something in there but still the same. Surely there must be a setting somewhere but I haven't changed anything knowingly as I only use this laptop when I haven't got access to my main one!

Had a look and there's no differences between the two computers which are both running Windows 7 starter. The conundrum continues....

I've just discovered I've got this happening on one of my Desktop machines and in my case I have tracked the cause down to the fact that I've got the Microsoft's Speech recognition programme running on this machine.
Turning off the Speech recognition removes the 'On' and 'Off' words from the folder View options.

OK so we might be getting somewhere. I've never used the speech recognition software before. So if you could just talk me through exactly where you went and what setting you turned off then I shall give it a go! Much appreciated!

In reply to a post by gunnersboy:

...So if you could just talk me through exactly where you went...

As it looks as if you've got speech recognition turned on, you'll be able to understand...

...gets coat....

No pun intended of course!

In reply to a post by gunnersboy:

OK so we might be getting somewhere. I've never used the speech recognition software before. So if you could just talk me through exactly where you went and what setting you turned off then I shall give it a go! Much appreciated!

You should find a tray icon in the Notification area of the Taskbar, right click this icon and select 'Exit'.

You then need to go to Control Panel>Ease of Access>Speech Recognition then select 'Advanced Options' at the top left of the window then uncheck 'Run Speech recogntion at Startup' under User Settings to prevent it from running.