disableing the seach on opening....

yesterday we had a lingering brown-out in our area,so i turned off everything in our home including the computer (to avoid any spike surges) then when it passed i turned things back on again,so when i turned my computer back on things seemed normal again...until i checked my UPS(back-up battery)which is what i do routinely after a power outage or disruption in the local power system,usually when i click the "self test"i should get a couple of beeps and a message box saying "OK",this time when i checked ,the puter shut down abruptly and rebooted itself,seemed to load up "Ok",so i didn't think much of it after that,until today while preparing to install my wife's new printer,i thought i would check the Hdd(C) to verify the old printers location before i uninstalled it,but when i clicked on "HDD"(left click),the "search page" opened instead of the usual (C) programs page,i also noticed that it(search) was atop the right click scroll menu highlighted in bold ,i have no idea how that changed itself?
so does anyone know how to disable the search from opening instead of the page i was trying to open?..other than that,everything else seems ok

sorry about the rambling content,

mimon :confused