Ok, i'm pretty sure this is going to be simple for you computer gurus, and I know i'm probably a moron for not knowing how to fix it myself.  Heres the problem.  When we try to open word it throw up hte little Microsoft word emplem, published this date, registered to this user, yada, yada, yada.  The problem is it doesn't actually bring up a new document for several minutes.  Then once the documnet does appear you can type but you can't see what your typing for several more minutes.  Its just running really slow, and I don't know whats making it run so slow.  I know I probably need to clean up my computer, but don't know where to start.  Any help is much appreciated.

How much crap is running in the system tray (lower right corner)?

Will check when I get home tonight Burley. When I go and open stuff like my pictures it opens right up.  Would the tray affect this?

When is the last time you defraged your pc?

Lol.....defraged?????????  I've heard of it, but not sure how to do it.  The wife is the one that uses it.  I just get stuck trying to fix it.  If you tell me how to do it I will give that a shot.

ye, you might want to defrag it....you do this by going to Start>All Programs>Accesories>System tools>Disk Defragmentor

Hope this helps

I'll give it a shot.  Any other suggestions?

Run a disk cleanup first.  Delete all of your temp files, cookies, etc.  Then defrag.

What Burley said.

Ok....didn't get the message about deleting the cookies and such until it was to late.  I've already defragged, but went to a friends house last night so I haven't got  a chance to se if it worked.  If it didn't is it worth deleting the cookies and such and then defragging again?  Wife is going to try it and see if the defragging did it when she gets back from getting her oil changed.

Burley,  when I hit the arrow to view everything in the tray there is 8 things

1)kodak

2)earthlink

3)Network cable unplugged

4)google desktop search

5)stay current with automatick updates

6)volume

7)Quicktime

8)winzip

Too many????

Yep, IMO too many.

Two options...right click on icon and select exit, close now, etc.  OR Start>Run>MSCONFIG>Startup tab

Don't remove everything, but I would remove Quicktime, WinZip, desktop search, earthlink (unless required for your internet connection), and kodak.

Hey matt.

I bout my mom a camera (one of the kodak easy shares) for christmas last year.  The "easy" share program is probably one of the worst stinking things i've ever used.

So if you have that, i reccomend just deleating the whole stinking program.  It was constantly running and very annoying.  I use photoshop now.

Hookemdown,

Thanks for the heads up.  Wife uses it not me.  I'll tell her there might be better programs, but I know she uses it to order pictures of our digital camera.

If the camera has a memory card, get a card reader.  Doesn't eat up memory like an always-running program.