Thanks McGrath, but after the last heartstopping experience I had when I thought I was doing a repair and instead was doing a reinstall, I'll take it to the shop next time I get desperate. (I'm a coward).

It's working fine at the moment and I have done a full backup onto my external drive, just in case of future problems, it's just niggling me that I cannot reload The Microsoft Essentials programme and am stuck with AVG now, although I have to say it seems to be doing the job at the moment.

I tried CCleaner a while back, no joy, also got rid of temp files, I'll investigate JiKs suggestion, but it looks as though it will just have to stay as it is until the next major disaster rears its ugly head. Thanks y'all,

John

I will however save this thread and all its advice for future reference, its been quite a learning curve for me.