Third-party firewalls and anti-virus programs are notoriously unstable on Windows 7 and Vista. I advise removing all third-party security, and running with the anti-virus Microsoft Security Essentials, and the built-in Windows Firewall.
Really, that is all you need. Combine those two programs with some common sense about what you download, you should be infection-free.
OK I'll give it a go.
Yesterday my machine would not boot at all. In desperation I took it round to my local PC repair shop. The guy looked at it, gave it a good clean and noticed some of the RAM was not properly seated and duly fixed that also. Now the machine booted OK but was still way too slow. So I've backed up all essential files and am now re-formatting my C Drive prior to a clean install of Win 7 64bit and hoping to draw a line under this whole affair.
Thanks again to everyone for their input. It's really appreciated.
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