computer slowdown

[Louis]

I am running XP Pro on a computer with a 3.0 GHZ
processor and 2 Gig of mem. For some reason, all of a
sudden, processing has slowed to a crawl. When I double
click for instance on the AOL icon it takes 30 to 45
seconds to load to where you click on start. Other
programs have also ground to a almost a halt.

Thanks for any help

Louis