Thanks for the suggestions - the PC is happily virus-free and is well protected.
Thanks to the Sony report team, the problem is solved. Their instruction was to use Internet Explorer; clear the Cookies, Temp Files, Browsing History and Cache and ensure that the Proxy settings were cleared. Reboot and all was fixed...
The link they provided below also leads to a Mac solution, FYI so a big thank you to the Sony folks.
http://www.kb.sony.com/selfservice/d...rnalId=C549491