Got up and running two months ago and everything OK on two laptops (one on XP and one on Windows 7. The desktop I am currently working on has never run it .. it wouldn't install. I have today had a clean reinstall and was highly hopefull .---it would seem in vain. When I click on the icon the usual Arduino logo flashes on the screen then disappears all very disappointing... Any suggestions please ?
What version of Win 7? 32bit? 64bit?
What version of the IDE? 1.0.3, 1.5.2 ?
Where have you unzipped the IDE?
Personally I unzip all my Arduino IDEs to c:\arduino\arduino-1.0.3, c:\arduino\arduino-1.0.2, C:\arduino\arduino-1.5.1r2, etc.
I have never had any issues running the IDE in this way.
I just redownloaded 1.0.3 and unzipped it as you suggested. Sketch would compile OK but not load. I then took a look at device manager which showed an unknown device which I suspected was the arduino. I tried reinstalling the driver manualy by pointing it to the driver sub directory and Bingo it works. Thanks for your help, hope others may find this helpful
Cheers
If anyone has the same problem, there is an installation instruction for installing Arduino software on Windows 7 here Installing Arduino Software and Drivers on Windows 7
DavidFMarks:
Got up and running two months ago and everything OK on two laptops (one on XP and one on Windows 7. The desktop I am currently working on has never run it .. it wouldn't install. I have today had a clean reinstall and was highly hopefull .---it would seem in vain. When I click on the icon the usual Arduino logo flashes on the screen then disappears all very disappointing... Any suggestions please ?
This is a minor issue. No need to worry at all. Here is the VERY SIMPLE SOLUTION of the issue.
Goto the folder where you extracted the arduino software> right click on the arduino.exe icon> select & click RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR> a dialogue box will appear , click YES.
Now its DONE.
Either you have to follow the instruction everytime you open arduino.exe or there is an alternate method. I'll tell that later on. But first, Kindly follow the above mentioned steps & report us if your problem is solved or not.
Thanks
DavidFMarks:
Got up and running two months ago and everything OK on two laptops (one on XP and one on Windows 7. The desktop I am currently working on has never run it .. it wouldn't install. I have today had a clean reinstall and was highly hopefull .---it would seem in vain. When I click on the icon the usual Arduino logo flashes on the screen then disappears all very disappointing... Any suggestions please ?
This can solve your problems in a couple of clicks 
http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,118440.0.html