Something weird happened in Internet Explorer 8.0

My toolbar below the top address window with the forward and back buttons, turned black, You can still see the icons, but the not the text I have in between (file, tools etc). If it helps any, I ran Ccleaner and Spybot, then restarted, prior to this occuring. I tried setting IE back to defaults, no dice. Any suggestions on how I can remedy this? Thanks in advance! I'm on a temporary computer borrowed due to an injury. It's running Windows XP, and it's a Compaq, that's about all I know for sure..lol

 

did you use cc cleaner on the registry?
if so it should of asked you to make a back up of it and if you did then try and just restore it (double click on the file) and restart your pc and see if that does the trick
Note: this only works if you used the reg part of cc and you made a back up

 

I fixed it! I read on a site to try desktop properties, change the theme to Windows Classic or whatever theme you used prior, and boom, it was gray again. Amazing how simple it turned out to be Thanks for your suggestion, though.

While I'm here, I may as well ask, what is the best free firewall out there? Any recommendations?