LAPTOP GETTING SLOWER AND SLOWER

[dazedandconfused]

You could choose to turn off the real-time scanning and stop it loading up at the beginning and simply perform a scan manually every month to ensure you have no nasties.

You could if you don't mind it getting infested to hell and gone in the meantime. All depends on the sites you visit of course. An alternative would be to invest in a nice lightweight AntiVirus solution like ESET Smart Security (http://www.eset.co.uk/Home/Smart-Security ) or an even better option for speeding it up (which the XP re-install would do pretty well) would be to change to Linux. If you only use it for surfing and Email then LinuxMint is a pretty good option.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

I'd only really recommend Linux though if you have a friend who knows computers. It's pretty user friendly these days (even the wife uses it  :eek ) but can still be complicated when you want to do certain more advanced things.