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#11
Thanks everyone for your help.
I did use Avanquest System Suite 9 Pro's registry cleaner - however, it modified some settings in my registry that killed Explorer. (Fixed it .. found a registry fix for that issue somewhere.)
I left AVG off for a while, then reinstalled it ... then uninstalled it. I'm not 100% convinced it was AVG, as the second time I ran it it wasn't quite as bad as before ...still had problems, though. Now, without AVG for a few days, things seem to be running nicely.
For AV I'm using the beta of Microsoft Security Essentials (http://www.softpedia.com/progDownloa...ad-131683.html), the replacement to Live OneCare.