Okay, Success I believe …
I finally was able to install the patch as per the instructions I was given (in my previous post), rebooted and I have speed back…I just did a quick test and IE runs properly now at its normal speed. I have all the shields enabled also. Prior to downloading the patch, I ran the remove utility on Avast’s website for my previous anti-virus program but had no result with that… so the patch did it,
I’ll check further tomorrow but a HUGE thank you to everyone who helped me out and to Petr Kurtin who sent me the updated patch.
UPDATE: Everything functionning just fine!