since I am trying to keep this computer running another month or two, I thought it wasn't good to have all these programs running at the bottom of my computer, on start-up. Thought I might be adding too much, and so I also told smart defrag not to put that on startup, but it did it anyway.
That illustrates the reason I don't go near anything from IOBit. They have a nasty habit of surreptitiously taking over the computer. I also have had serial boot failures due to Smart Defrag's Boot Defrag when I was testing it.
What do you mean about keeping the machine going for another month or two? Was it on its last leg before this?
As to the problem, I'm not sure what the cause is. It could be a confluence of things. I would start with the basics. First, you might be able to undo problems with a System Restore in Advanced Boot Options (mash F8 as the BIOS screen closes). It may be too late to chose the "Last Good Configuration" option, which is often very handy.
I then would do a chkdsk /f. Chkdsk /f /r is called for as well, but first copy all valuable data to another storage device, because it can be destructive.
Then a deep scan with a good anti-malware prog. Malwarebytes is great. I also like Kaspersky offline.
It could be that too many things are starting up automatically. CCleaner is good for trimming the waste. This is especially critical when it comes to scanners. And I always turn off CCleaner's own resident monitoring for the same reason.
I find it hard to believe that Outlook would let a blatant exploit in via email. I don't use the prog, but presumably it hooks into your running AV. Again, it may be that too many cooks are spoiling the pot, AV-wise, on your system.
