The slowness is mainly in loading programs, i guess. Once loaded, they seem to run more or less normally.
i run AVG Free v8 daily, and ran Panda anti-Rootkit in case. i also use Windows Defender daily
i ran Silent Runners - was surprised to see how many things seem to be running that are not immediately obvious to me what they are. Also - many of the entries on it are meaningless to me - i dunno if they should be there, or not.
If anyone can throw any light on this, or advise on ways to speed up, i would be grateful.