This article by George Ou is the BEST guide I have seen for de-gunking and speeding up your PC. I have used this process on about 200 computers (I'm an IT tech at a mid-size company).
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=547
The only place where I depart from George's instructions is that I don't uncheck everything in Autoruns, only the third party software. Keep in mind that if you go too far, all you need to do is boot into safe mode (tap F8 on startup) and re-enable what I just disabled. The first time I did this it took me about 3 hours to get it right, but once you get the hang of it, you can tune-up a PC in 15-30 minutes (amaze your friends!).
If this doesn't take care of all of your problems, install spybot Search and Destroy for Spyware removal
http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html
and AVG Free for virus scan
http://free.grisoft.com/ww.download?prd=afe
NOTE: All apps linked here and in in the George Ou article are Free. AVG will try to get you to purchase their 'suite' but the free anti-virus gets the job done. If you have Norton or McAfee already installed on your computer, and you are paid up, then don't bother replacing it with AVG. If your Norton/McAfee is expired - uninstall it BEFORE you install AVG. Two AV on 1 PC = bad.
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