Thanks E-liam,
I think that having run Norton AV, Sybot and Trend Micro's House call we have done the 'virus/worm' thing. However I thank you for the lead which I have passed onto a friend who is having home page hijack syndrom.
I am currently working on the idea of shutting down one program of the task manager processes each time I shut down each day. So hopefully in week or so I can eradicate the idea that it is due to one program hanging, after that I'll try a windows repair and then bite the bullet and try a factory settings format and restore.
(That's if I haven't tamed the tempestuous ATI 9800 Radeon graphics settings for each of the main flying sims and thrown the whole thing out of the study window!)
As a side question could someone give me the best settings for the paging file when you have 1.5gb of DDR RAM installed.
Thanks
BB