Right,

first off, theres some bad advice here, if you dont know, please dont comment. adaware and avg antivirus are brillliant products.

dont panic or worry about partitions or anything, and certainly dont use norton products on a pc that old, that will really cripple your system because they use up lots of resources on a less powerfull pc, and avg does just as good a job with a lot less hastle.

AOL is not great as already said, but thats a problem that can be worked around for now...there are more pressing issues at hand...

....you have to assume the adware scan failed, so the next step is to re-start in safe mode as and log in as administrator, then re-attempt your adaware and avg scan.
the reason for this is because theres some nasties blocking the correct operation of adaware, running in safe mode these nasties will not be running allowing you to scan without interference.


adaware, like avg has two versions, a version you have to pay for, and a free version...it sounds like your installation prob may have been that you downloaded the paid-for version hence why it asked for registation.....it ran in the end so i guess it automaticly reverted to the free version, which is nothing to worry about, the level of protection is the same.

with msconfig open, do a google search for the individulal items to see if you want them or not, you can tell what most are from the name but some you may want to look up before stopping them.

run you scans in safe mode, use msconfig and then post your results.