Hi Toots, Do you see the ads? Before I used the ad block feature on FireFox to remove the ads I would on ocassion experience some slow downs with IE and GW as it loaded the ads. If you see the ads get your son to install an ad blocker and it may fix the problem.

one good program that I use that will do a good uninstall of anything you may have on your pc you want to get rid of but ALSO has a feature to show you what is running at startup and with simple clicks lets you change those from on to off and vice versa is Revo uninstaller, it is free. Revo Uninstaller on their site you can click on some screenshots to show you exactly what it will look like and they have good step by step directions on how to use it. User's help Auto Run Manager Junk Files Cleaner it does all that and more, if you go to any of those links then look to the right it lists all the various tools built in, just click on any one of those then at the bottom of that page's text there will be another link that says go to user guide page, that will give you the direct instructions and pictures to how to use that aspect of the tool Here is the list of the tools and utilities included in Revo Uninstaller: Auto Start Manager - Stop programs that start automatically on Windows startup; speed up loading of Windows! Windows Tools Manager - Handy and useful tools bundled with every version of Windows; easily find useful system tools and options! Junk Files Cleaner - Find and remove unnecessary files from your computer; free up disk space and delete files you do not need! Browsers History Cleaner - Erase web browser history, visited pages history and temporary internet files of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape and Opera web browsers; free up a lot of disk space by deleting temporary internet files like temporary saved videos, temporary flash files, temporary pictures etc! Office History Cleaner - Remove the history of most recently used files in MS Office; remove your tracks by deleting the list of last opened MS Office documents! Windows History Cleaner - Remove the history of recently opened files, delete temporary files, remove usage tracks and other history items that are saved by Windows; remove your tracks saved by Windows for a lot of operations! Unrecoverable Delete Tool - Erase files and folders forever; be sure that nobody could recover your files and folders after deleting! Evidence Remover - Make sure already deleted files, folders and other data are unrecoverable; securely erase your data!

Dennis, thanks for a well laid out list of problems. It does help those who feel they can see some or all of your problems. AVG is by far the most popular free anti virus and I doubt that is your issue. I would not remove that one. Spyware Doctor I know nothing about. If you have the original CD or the download stored on your computer you could remove it entirely using the Add/Remove and see if that helps at all. Superantispyware and or Malwarebytes could be alternatives to trying Spybot Search & Destroy. If you use Spybot S&D be sure it is in fact that program and not a sound alike rogue program. Have you ran any cleaners at all? Not registry cleaners but the Disk cleanup in the Accessories/System Tools folder of XP. Try that and a defrag, it will help modestly. Do you have Google or Yahoo toolbars and are they allowed to run in the background? The Google Toolbar has either 3 or 4 entries in your Startup and using your resources. Click Start click Run type msconfig click OK click the Startup tab Now check each of these items and decide if they do in fact need to run. Google each entry before deciding to stop one because if you stop the wrong ones the computer may not start again. If you stop any you need to reboot. During the reboot you will get a dire warning, do not be alarmed, place a check mark not to see it again and continue the booting.

Have you cleared out your temporary files, history, etc... you go to control panel and then internet options to get to it, and sometimes defragging the computer helps.