Messenger memory error, computer slow

About two weeks ago I found that starting Outlook Express
caused an error in Windows Messenger. This was a memory
error, something about the instruction referencing memory
and the memory could not be written. I got a stop
messenger fix for it from this message board, that seemed
to work.

Now, I get that messenger memory error about once a
minute, no matter what I am doing, surfing the net,
email, games, word, doesn't matter. It is very annoying.

Outlook is now freezing while checking for new messages.
Out of curiousity I hit ctrl-alt-del and saw about 10
processes named winhlp32.dll.exe running. I shut all
those processes down and tried running Outlook and it
worked like normal.

Windows is taking longer and longer to start up as well.
It used to take just a few seconds after the log on
screen. Now, it takes 15-20 seconds for my desktop to
show up and then all my icons are generic file icons and
it takes 1-2 minutes for them all to load to their
correct icons and about another 30 seconds after that
until my cursor gives me a full arrow, instead of the
arrow/hour glass. I wait for the full arrow because if I
click anything or try to run any programs before that
windows usually freezes and I have to reboot.

I ran a full virus scan with Norton Antivirus as someone
suggested and it found 8 adware files, nothing major
though.