All programs taking a long time to open, WMM will not allow upload of video

I have run a virus scan, a spyware scan and defragged my computer and nothing seems to help. It started with just Windows Movie Maker not letting me upload videos, it would freeze when the upload screen opened, then it started taking up to ten minutes to open a project. After that I noticed that other programs were taking a long time to open. I am considering a system restore to last week, but I don't want to if there is another option.

I'm not sure if this is related, but the bottom half of the icons on my start menu now appear as broken images instead of the picture. The top half and anything in the All Programs section are fine though.

 

Now the folder window for my flash drive has started freezing. I haven't tried other folder windows.