I love you guys....the information here has been wonderful...no need apologize for giving their two cents worth...we all benefit...I didn't know there were so many choices out there!
I think I finally got ccleaner to work...Registry Mechanic was not working for me...it said I had 3000 errors, but had to register to get them out...so I deleted it from my program list, and tried ccleaner again...and since I had some cookies in the file, after I ran the program they weren't there...you can clean cookies yourself just by clicking on the start button, click on run, and type in cookies...then delete all the files...
For antivirus, I use Avast Free home version; I also use Ad-Aware free to check for web sites trying to send me ads.
thanks again ladies and gents, all info was appreciated!!!
BJ