I am having a really annoying problem i have never encountered before in Vista. It mostly manifests itself in frequent lockups while using IE8 where everything in the explorer window freezes inclusing the cursor and windows frame controls, but the taskbar is still active and I can switch to other programs running. If I switch to another open IE window it too will lock up. These lockups either resolve themselves after around 15 to 45 secs but sometimes just trigger the not responding process and require explorer to restart.
I am also having problems at the same time uninstalling a program that has recently stopped functioning (Genie eyes-only) which justs hangs as well and have had issues with licensing on another program which at times doesn't recognise that it is a registered product, then will work fine the next day. The software company involved believe it may be linked to a registry problem.
These problems all are rendering the system almost unusable and I am loath to have to re-install at this point. I have Norton Int sec 2009 installed and updated asa well as all Vista updates applied.
Any help would be most appreciated!