You can get the menu bar to appear by pressing Alt on the keyboard. Pull down the Tools menu and choose Options to get into the settings.

I have my toolbar, it's the gear icon that does not respond, everything else on the toolbar works

Which settings icon do you mean?

Is that one of the menu entries?

Is this an icon added by an extension or one of the icons (toolbar buttons) that Firefox has by default.

Can you attach a screenshot?

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenshot
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/how-do-i-create-screenshot-my-problem

Use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot.

I got the screenshot, but I'm running windowsXP and it just WON'T load.... it's on my Yahoo toolbar right under the home icon (the little house), it's a green gear. clicking on it does nothing, rt clicking gives me a dropdown menu, the first three options ( the ones I want) are grayed out