Thanks ja. I already had a simpler solution to try first and if it didn't work I already had the file on the usb.
Try this first: go to tools on ie and get into net connections. Go to advanced and click on the ie reset button. It all took about a minute and appears to have completely resolved the problem.
She had asked me to look at her machine bec it was running very slow. I uninstalled avasti (took 30 min the thing was so slow

). I then ran malwarebytes & others and found nothing. I assume that getting avasti off may have corrupted something. Anyway, it is much faster and appears normal. We'll wait and see. Thanks again and if it is a problem in the future I'll go the firefox route. She likes yahoo by way of ie so she can read all the celebrity crap.