When I click on the - fire fox disappears from the task bar; it is still open but gone from the task bar, if I click on any icon it opens a new Firefox window, I end up with several windows open but none on the task bar.

Question

Question
When I click on the - to minimize fire fox, it does not close the window but the firefox icon disappears from the task bar; it is still open but gone from the task bar, if I click on any other icon it opens a new Firefox window, I end up with several windows open but none on the task bar.

Answer 1

Boot the computer in Windows Safe Mode with network support (press F8 on the boot screen) as a test to see if that helps.
Do a malware check with some malware scanning programs on the Windows computer.<br>
Please scan with all programs because each program detects different malware.<br>
All these programs have free versions.
Make sure that you update each program to get the latest version of their databases before doing a scan.
*Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware:<br>http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
*AdwCleaner:<br>http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/<br>http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml
*SuperAntispyware:<br>http://www.superantispyware.com/
*Microsoft Safety Scanner:<br>http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx
*Windows Defender: Home Page:<br>http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx
*Spybot Search & Destroy:<br>http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
*Kasperky Free Security Scan:<br>http://www.kaspersky.com/security-scan
You can also do a check for a rootkit infection with TDSSKiller.
*Anti-rootkit utility TDSSKiller:<br>http://support.kaspersky.com/5350?el=88446
See also:
*"Spyware on Windows": http://kb.mozillazine.org/Popups_not_blocked