Thanks for the replies, just spoke to him on the phone, told him to log in and have a look see, he's running xp pro sp2 fully patched, ms anti-spyware, and avg home updated, all scans are clean. AFAIK its a recent problem, temp files etc etc won't have been cleared ... yet, hope he logs in and keeps us up to speed, I'm away at the moment and normally help with his pc probs, .... god help us all
Keep them coming, I'll ring him again