The memory test showed no issues. I was in safe mode at the time. The machine is doing things in a much more reasonable time than I am used to so it is clearly happier in safe mode than normal mode by a huge margin.
I then thought it might be a good idea to remove all the stuff I don't think I need from the start menu. I got rid of dropbox no problem but when I try to delete anything else it reports Windows Installer can't be accessed or faulty. Not sure what to do about this.
How do I get out of safe mode and back to normal? I went through the F8 boot modes and selected "normal mode" but it still boots up with a black background and reduced display resolution (big icons of few pixels etc). I don't know if it is normal full mode but screwed display parameters or still in safe mode.
I'll play some more later.
Rans6...................