Thanks for the links, Tinman57, I visited both. However... they seem to be a bit out-dated? Would you happen to have other more current sites? 
As far as being a waste of money... ? It's a HUGE waste of money ... But. As you may recall... I was duped into thinking that this SpeedMaxPc was offered/recommended/endorsed by Windows Help & Support. And the three misleading steps, in the blue box, is where my Odyssey began. Step 1: I downloaded and installed; Step 2: I clicked Scan; Step 3: I clicked Fix All.
This is when another window opened saying I had to buy the full version to continue. 
This wasn't totally unexpected, on my part, because I didn't remember seeing the word free anywhere on their web page. (I had closed my browser before the install and I didn't go back a check)
So...... I paid the ransom... and now I'm trying to get it back. 
It was way less than $440.05 .... it was more like two and a half cases of beer worth? 
And... as far as Freebies doing the same thing... hopefully they don't... 'cause this one deleted some files I NEEDED to run other programs I have. 
Thankfully System Restore fixed that. 
-crabby3
With the way you described how they got you to pay for it, there was a lawsuit on this same scam about 5 years ago and the Justice Department forced them to refund all the money.
You can do a simple internet search for more recent sites.
As far as anti-viruses go, NEVER have more than ONE anti-virus installed on your system. They "fight" each other and cause a lot of problems.
Spybot S&D is a good anti-malware app, I use it myself. However, the Tea-Timer part of it will eat up a lot of memory and CPU cycles, so I wouldn't suggest letting it run at startup.
If your system is taking 11 - 15 minutes to start up, then you definitely have problems. My XP SP3 machine boots up in under 3 minutes, with the desktop showing up in a little under a minute.
I personally clean my registry every couple of weeks using Eusing and Wise registry cleaners. You would be amazed at all the crap that's left over in the registry from apps and the system, that when left alone slows your system down to a crawl. And then there's the hard drive optimization. I run Defraggler every couple of weeks to keep my drive in tip-top shape, which also speeds up things a lot.
I don't know about Vista and above, you would have to do some research to find out if it's needed on those OS's.
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) I'll play the devil's advocate and ask these questions before I make up my mind, not that it really matters. lol
