Hi, Welcome To the forum.
I would write you things that I think can be useful for you and you can choose each one to do or not!
if you like to make sure if you have any virus/spyware or not, you can let one other AV else to scan your computer too, I’m not mean to install another one, because avast! is a nice AV that can almost catch any kind of malware, but it can be sometimes useful to scan with one other AV engine too, you can try Avira Rescue System, it a live bootable AV disc.
The Avira AntiVir Rescue System a linux-based application that allows accessing computers that cannot be booted anymore. Thus it is possible to repair a damaged system, to rescue data or to scan the system for virus infections. Just double-click on the rescue system package to burn it to a CD/DVD. You can then use this CD/DVD to boot your computer. The Avira AntiVir Rescue System is updated several times a day so that the most recent security updates are always available. You can download it from here.
After burn it to disc, use it to boot your computer and do a full scan and remove anything that it find.
Download, install and update these programs, these antispywares can work beside avast! and are recommended:
Malwarebytes Antimalware: http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
SUPERAntiSpyware: http://www.superantispyware.com/
SpyBot S&D: http://www.spybot.info/
scan your computer using them, also try to immunize your windows using SpyBot S&D. During installation of SpyBot S&D disable all residents.
if your computer is working slow:
after a long time that you use your computer or when you install and un-install many program, or even sometimes after removing some malware in your computer. these steps can slow down your computer a bit. there are some usual steps that can help you:
Defragment Hard Drive: you can use “Auslogics Disk Defrag”, it’s freeware and you can get it from Here
Clean-up Hard Drive: empty temp folders periodically can be useful, there are a program called CCleaner that can do it for you easily and it’s freeware, you can get it from Here
Clean-up Registry: “Auslogics Registry Cleaner” would remove invalid and those keys that are not needed safely and without any risk. It would fix many problems and of course make your windows a few faster. get it from Here
Defragment Registry: Keeping the registry as compact as possible means better computer performance. As a result, the Registry becomes compact and small, greatly improving your computer performance. “Auslogics Registry Defrag” can do it for you, you can use this as a long time free trial without any problem, get it from Here
also:
make sure you are running your windows and other software with enough RAM and CPU resource.
to do it, open start menu, right click on My Computer, and choose properties, in opened window, you can see how much RAM and CPU you have, now open Task manager by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del keys and go to performance Tab, now see how much RAM you are using, if the number is more than that much RAM you have, it’s mean you should by much more RAM, usually it’s possible to upgrade your RAM for both Deskyop PC and Laptop. also, if your CPU is old one, it’s better to upgrade all your computer, because this one sometimes is not easy to change and you would need to change something else like motherboard and… that are not possible for laptop.
for the MS Office problem, if you are running office 2003, go to add/remove programs (in win xp) or programs and features (in win vista) and choose MS Office 2003 and click on change and then click on repair, it would re-install itself.
if you are using MS Office 2007, open MS Word, click on office logo in top/left side and then click on Word Options, go to resources and click on diagnose, it would look to find the problem, also for office 2007 it’s recommended to upgrade to Service Pack 2 if you are not currently done it yet. if you want to do, you can get it from Here.
hope those help you!
If you want more information about the Pro i can say to go there