OK, I kicked out Zonealarm, enabled Winduz firewall and injested Avast. The machine now boots more quickly, will open attachments before I lose the will to live and closes down in some minutes.
BUT
it still goes around the "do not unplug, installing upgrades" bit on EVERY power down.
I think Adobe is the culprit, it fetches a new update on a regular basis but I think it fails to install properly.
I can live with it, for the moment, until I have time to fiddle with it unless anyone has a real quick fix up their sleeve?
Ta,
Rans6.