[Ragnarok]

from what you have shown there, it does not actually seem bad, I am pretty sure usually taskmgr never takes up that much usually, (in fact im lucky and have about 97-99% idle whilst typing this thread)

and of course when you shut down task manager, that usage would go.

I thought the same thing, but when I close TM it is just as slow as ever. No noticeable improvements.
I also run quite a few programs at once and only hit 5% cpu used at any given moment.

Is there any application that is taking a abnormal amount of memory? (this is a big problem I hear)

Not really. The largest memory usages are explorer.exe which is taking up 10,000K and svchost.exe (3rd one) at 13,000K. Everything else is under 5,000K.

again, when you have finished task manager, and closed it, does the system run faster...

Nope.

if you cant figure this out later, I can take control of your pc if you want (either msn -> through remote desktop sharing, or special software I wrote..) I run a computer company in the UK and I do technical support all the time, this is actually a common problem, it usually occurs after something new is installed or new device.

I appreciate the offer but no can do. This is the home PC of my boss' daughter and I don't have any convenient stations where I can plug it into our network for net access.

The other problem that no one likes to hear is that it could be a virus... do you have up to date scanners?

It has scanners but the definitions are a few months old (primarily because it hasn't been hooked to the net for a few months and is unable to download latest).

I will keep messing with it here and hopefully something will come to mind.

Thanks for the suggestions. I will keep this thread updated.