System Erratic and Sluggish - Need Troubleshooting Help

Here is the scenario ... Windows XP Pro working fine, absolutely no problems. Loaded IE 7 Beta 2 (big mistake). Had all kinds of problems with banking website and others where IE could not interact with their secure sites/servers. Finally gave up, uninstalled IE 7, and regressed back to IE 6.

System worked a bit better but still had some bugs in IE (probably due to some lingering IE 7 files). Ran Acronis Privacy Suite to clean things up. System starts to freeze when the screensaver activates. All I can do is restart.

Finally repaired Windows XP saving all of my programs and settings. I reinstalled SP2 from a file since I could not access Windows Update (error 0x60248006). After that, I still cannot access Windows Update (same error as ALL updates fail). Suspect BITS and after all the research, still cannot get it to START. My next step is to use Dial-a-fix from djlizard. Any other thoughts/suggestions?

Also, now the system is unstable and frequently has to be rebooted after executing a program and hanging for a prolonged period of time. Suspect I have some driver problems since many of the video/audio drivers were updated after I originally installled Windows XP. But I wonder if that is all ...

I need to do some serious trouble shooting. Have perused multiple forums and don't know if I have a SW or HW problem. But, according to my research, I have to go through a process of elimination. Seems I should start with the SW stuff ... is that a good assumption? What steps or SW utilities should I use.

Any thoughts/comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am reasonably comfortable using more technical solutions but am far from being an expert since I don't do this for a living.

Thanks in advance ...

 

I'm really struggling here ... Could someone give me some direction?

Would appreciate any thougths or suggestions.

Thanks in advance ...

 

Why not get it over with and reformat and reinstall.?

 

Above is excellent advice and to compliment I would use "Lexun RegscrubXP" will take a snapshot of current reg and allow a restore if deemed necassary:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Lexun_RegScrubXP_d2048.html

I would be sure you have some registry crud left from IE7.