trouble shooting

is always a good idea. Take good aim because trouble seems to be pretty elusive.

Ok, jokes aside -- It sounds like your system needs a good cleaning up.
Delete temp files, temp IE files the Windows\Prefetch directory, run scandisk, and see what happens. If Scandsk shows errors, you may need a new hard drive soon. If not, download Spybot Search and Destroy and MalwareBytes antispyware. run both.
Make sure you update them first.

Do you have Antivirus? If not, you really should have that checked out as well, get an AV program (like Avast free or AVG free) and scan your system.

Also, go to start -- run -- type
msconfig
press enter. Go to the startup tab and remove unwanted items from startup.

Check your hard drive space (storage). For best performance you should have at least 20-30% free space on it.

Post back with the results.

Press ctrl+alt+del and end explorer.exe and then go to file, start process, and start explorer.exe and then your desktop should show up

Click Start, Run and type regedt32 and press Enter.

Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\winlogon\

You will have to set the Shell variable in the right hand pane by right clicking and select Modify. It should = Explorer.exe

When you have finished all of the suggestions run this to clean the Registry:

Download and install CCleaner to tidy up your Registry. Backup the Registry as you go along, rescan again and again saving as you go until there are no errors left.

Cleaner: Windows

When you first open Ccleaner you will have an option to Analyze or Run Cleaner, after checking the left Pane and making your choices. Delete all Temp Files. If you scroll down you will see a greyed out box that has Advanced next to it. Left click on it and keep pressing OK to all of the responses. I normally Untick Windows Log Files and Memory Dumps as they may come in handy.

You don't have to install all of the add ons or shortcuts just the one to the Desktop.

http://www.ccleaner.com/download