Had a call from No1 Daughter "my laptops running really slowly, do you think I might have a virus?"
Went down there with a USB memory stick stuffed full of useful software and installed AVG, AdAware and Eastcleaner. Scanned everything - no virus infections, no spyware, except a few tracking cookies, and only 428 registry errors.
Thank heavens for NAT routers.
Deleted a couple of startup entries, Acrobat reader etc.
Found the main problem, this is an newish Acer with a 1.5 gHz processor, 256Mb RAM running XP. Told her to go buy loadsa memory for it.
Using XP on this PC with the horrible pad to move the mouse is a real trial. Proper Mices are much better.
Also defragged the HD, took nearly 3 hours.
What a relief to get back to 98SE.