I received such an awesome welcome here when I joined the group, and I thank you all. Sadly I feel I don't have a place here any more since I can no longer use Gimp. I'm not sure what has happened but every time I try to open a file, new or old Gimp crashes. I thank you all again.

This is computer stuff. It can be made to work... I don't see you asking for help about this. Have you tried to erase/rename your Gimp profile?

It would be sad to see you go Charlie. As ofnuts said, it can be made to work.

I have tried multiple fixes. First uninstalling/reinstalling but then i got a lot of missing dll error messages so I did a system restore and that worked for a few hours but the problem came back. I have restored as far back as i can but still only lasts for a bit. Most of my apps freeze for a bit but usually start working in about20-30 seconds. Gimp just shuts down though. Right now I'm running a sfc scan to see, if I can understand it, what might be wrong.

Looks like a dying hard disk or at least corrupt file system to me... Did you check the SMART data?

I do apologize for this, but when it comes to computers I'm basically a Neanderthal placed in the here and now. I read your link but don't know how to check that (worried about installing the wrong tool) I went to the command prompt and used the prompt (wmic{enter} diskdrive get status{enter}) it said OK and OK

Nothing wrong being a Neanderthal, find someone who isn't and can fix your computer

Greetings. It really sounds like you have computer problems that extend way past any issues you might be having with GIMP. Applications freezing for 20-30 secs is not normal behavior and as ofnuts said, you are either having hardware problems or your OS/file system is corrupt. These problem are most likely going to get worse. You will probably need to have someone who is technically savvy take a look at your system and repair it.

Better backup your important files before it's too late.

I have to agree, all signs point to the problem being my computer is dying (although all diagnostics I have tried say it's fine) I do thank you all for your help

I have (hopefully) taken care of my Gimp problem!! :-D The culprit was a brush set I had installed. I have tested and retested this, and if I remove the brushes before I start Gimp it runs fine. The set is "wg dust particles". I didn't think there would be any problem using it being an .abr file since a lot of my brushes are .abr's, but this one stops Gimp from working on my laptop. The good news is (if everyone lets me) I can stay here

Good news, indeed.

Good thing, but If you had erased/renamed your Gimp profile as recommended in post #2 of this thread, it would have been fixed a lot earlier

As far as I am concerned you are welcome to stay . Glad you found the problem and fixed it.

Stay as long as you like. Photoshop's abr brushes are usually a lot bigger than Gimp's native gbr brushes and that may well have been the problem.