Thank you Kiethuk and Computer_Commando: for your replies. Sorry I have been unavailable for a while. I un-installed every thing that I could on my friends machine, defragged it, cleaned out some suspicious looking stuff in the registery (tied to Norton and aol) and gave it back to him. It was working pretty well. I think the main thing that helped was getting rid of Norton AV. However, he ended up giving the machine to an orphanage in Mexico and buying a laptop with Windows 7. Now he has a whole new set of problems to deal with and I won't be able to help him. I am totally ignorant of Win 7. However, I do appreciate your inputs, sorry i took so long responding. This forum has pulled my fat out of the fire many times in the past Thanks again
PS, you are right about Malwarebytes, It didn't work.....