Computer Problem?

[Nick]

You say you were running AVG and Norton?
There will be conflicts if you run 2  anti virus programs.
As I said before, you will not clear AV programs by deleting them, you need to do a complete re-boot back to the bare op system.

I beg to differ - most modern AV systems uninstall perfectly well. Norton, IMHO, has always been problematic - actually, anything involving Symantec falls into that bracket - AVG uninstalls perfectly well so long as you do it properly, via Add/Remove Programs and re-boot if asked.

Having two AV systems can cause conflicts, but in recent years the effect has tended towards slowness rather than anything nastier.

There is rarely, if ever, a need to re-install the o/s or go back to the bare o/s - almost all issues are resolvable without that rather draconian approach.

In the 15 or so years I've been managing financial IT systems in London involving well over 1,000 PCs and many 100s of servers running Windows variants, there have been precious few times a clean install has been absolutely necessary - normally only due to a catastrophic hardware failure. Since XP, Windows has actually been pretty good, and most recognised applications reasonably well behaved.

Your experience may differ, but I can honestly say that I have never had to do a clean install on any system - its a very drastic measure.