Thanks John. I'll do what I can on my own, and when my flatmate takes this with him to Denver for the holidays, I'll send a note with it for him to show to his cousin, who I think is quite good at this kind of thing.

You've probably right that the computer has picked up some kind of virus, though we've always been careful to not open anything unless it's been scanned via the Norton AntiVirus program provided by our e-mail sites at Yahoo, and that's been the case for ages, even before I installed this other anti-virus program for his C-Drive to hold onto.

But it's so easy these days for things to slip through. I'm amazed at how much is picked up daily via the anti-ad spyware!

Thank you again for all your excellent information!

..xx..e