Hi, I had received some wonderful help last time around for malware issues. Still grateful to cdavfrew for that Hoping for some pointers on current snafu. My Windows Installer has failed and it came to light when trying to uninstall programs from Add/Remove in Control Panel. Further realised that .Net has failed too as has Automatic Updates. On further inspection I found many Windows programs to have stopped (System Configuration Utility/ Services). There is tremendous lag and it takes ages to open even the browser. The other day, was trying to download SP3 and even the download wouldn't complete despite several attempts. I though of Windows repair, but with so many OS issues, I seem to be out of depth. I'm using Microsoft Windows XP Professional, SP2. Will be happy to provide more details. Any help is welcome. Many thanks in advance. Cheers!!