Thanks for the suggestions. For info the pc is a desktop, P4 3.0 ghz with 512 meg of ram.
We've deleted as you suggested Richard, and are now running the trend micro and stinger scan as amanoffewwords suggested. After your suugestion Richard the pc sped up quite a bit. After a safe boot the icons appeared, and after a lot of deleting, and a reboot, the pc let on 'registry data not found'. From here we will load windows again, but the machine seems to be running ok after the creation of a new profile.
I'll keep you informed.
Thanks so much for the help!
LPS