[JohnS]

Eric,
Sorry for not responding back quickly but I don't check all the posts every day.

Symantec, maker of Norton products, though they make wondeful stuff, it can cause problems at times as JohnR stated, though, I do use it at work on some things and it does do it's job. Personally, if you are good with Microsoft products and know your way around them, you can go in and wipe out most of your problems manually, keeping in mind that Microsoft hides stuff in as many as three places at times. They are good at that! So, depending on which operating system you are running, it can be in different places. I like the Adaware stuff that JohnR mentioned too, works pretty good and stops most of the BS on the garbage that the internet seems to send our way. Cleaning out the temp file is nothing compared to what could really be in your machine. If you are not really comfortable doing that stuff on the machine, well, you can purchase the Symantec product and more than likely it will function just fine for you though, it will not delete the garbage that the internet has instiled into your machine and you will need to stop those from starting up, which is why your machine is taking forever and a day to start up. I suggest you also get some firewall software, again, Symantec makes some decent stuff for that too, called "Internet Security". They offer it in a combo with their anti-virus software as well. You can customize exactly what you will receive and what you do not want to receive, such as cookies etc. It will eliminate all those nasty pop-ups if you choose as well. Let me know..

John S