I was having the same problem and I never got an answer to the problem. Here is what I did to fix it and it worked. I went to windows update and of coarse it said I was already updated but, I choose to update anyway and sure enough I needed a huge update and so I went into the updating mode for a few hours. When it was all done I tried everything that gave me trouble before and it was now working fine. Before the update, I had uninstalled my MS Solitaire games as it was freezing up. The upgrade had reinstalled it , even though I did not ask for it but, now it works fine. If you do the update, don't worry, it will take a long time. Hope this works for you too.