Back in shed in dead of night. Hard to cope with other people's stuff but have promised said pal I'd carry on with it when he has time.
I did a trial run on one of the many computers in this shed, and really didn't have trouble setting up Hotmail, so it's just a case of seeing what the issues are with his slow system and also getting his e addresses transferred to another mail program.
It's a separate issue, but I would assume some other factor with the sudden loss of performance since the speed tuning seems to be go faster until it stops, not just get bogged down. I guess this will come have to come first.
Thanks for the help, I'll come back when I'm more clear about the issues.