I'm trying to ask all the questions in one thread, so please answer any with which you can help me.

1.) I have several versions of ubuntu installed on my computer. Technically, all but one are incomplete installs which I would like to delete if possible... any suggestions?

2.) I would like to access my files from the Windows partition, but it doesn't show up under "system." Can someone advise me on what to do with this, or is it for some reason impossible to access Windows files?

3.) My computer's performance has dipped substantially in the last two days. I am trying to figure out why this is, so if someone could tell me if there is a task manager or the like or a performance diagnosis tool, that would be great. Also, my computer does not have an anti-virus program, so if someone could assist me with that, that might also be the cause of the poor system performance.

Thanks in advance, and sorry if my questions are vexingly simple. >.<

1) Depends on how you installed them. If they're all on separate partitions, which are otherwise unused, you can just erase the files and reuse the partitions. We'd need a lot more details to safely let you know what to do.

2) Normally Windows partitions mount without error. Usually clicking on the device automounts without problems and you can access your files. If that doesn't work, it may be because of your question about question (1), and your installation might be bollixed up.

3) Which brings me to my suggestion: if you've made quite a complicated mess with several partial installs, and now things don't work properly, the easiest and safest solution is to backup your files, reinstall Windows, completely wiping the system, then reinstalling Ubuntu, once. That's probably not the advice you wanted to hear, but untangling your current situation remotely is going to be problematic.

1.) I tried to install ubuntu once as a cd-boot with auto-partitioning and once with a manual partition (wasn't exactly sure what I was doing). Since neither worked, I booted up Windows and installed ubuntu through Windows. Long story short.... >.> i have no idea what I actually did. :P I'll probably just reinstall both os...

2.) I might have not been clear... I am trying to access files on the Windows partitioning of the same disk that ubuntu is on. Flash disks and external hard drives with fat32 (I think that is the Windows format) work just fine.

3.) I assumed it would be best to reinstall both. >.< That is no doubt going to be a pain in the butt. I've never done anything save a fresh restart, so I will have to look into how to use the recovery partition in Windows to reinstall it. *sigh* I had hoped to easily transition to linux/ ubuntu once I contracted a trojan on Windows, but it seems as though I'll still have to deal with that os.
---In any case, if as a temp fix I could run malware scans/ figure out what programs are bogging down the comp, I would like suggestions to that effect, please.

Before deleting any Ubuntu partitions, are you using its bootloader (Grub) to boot it any Windows? If you are and you delete the partition, you will not be able to boot anything.

If you want to view windows files from Ubuntu on boot, you need to have the windows partition mounted and an entry in the /etc/fstab file for it as well as the ntfs-3g program installed.

With regard to your computers performance declining, that is much too vague a question for anyone to answer realistically. If you could be more specific about what is happening, which programs present problems or do they all???

Just re-read your posts and have never done a wubi install so I don't know if the bootloader info even applies?

I am such a noob at Linux that all I can tell you is that I read about grub online... and that's it. >.> I'll have to do some serious reading and then reinstall, I think.

However, the research will be really annoying as the simple act of type right now is lagging. Anything I do in firefox, including and especially flash apps such as the games on facebook, are incredibly slow. I know it is not the internet, since the slide bar on the side is lagging, even when the window is fully loaded. I am not sure if the problem persists outside of firefox, but I am under the impression that even switching between folders is slower than it should be or was on windows.

I am sorry about the lack of information. All I can say is that I have a 2 gig processor amd athlon says 64 (I am assuming 64-bit compatible) and it has 2 gigs of ram.

To be perfectly honest, I know how annoying it is to help newbies when they should be doing some research in advance (animals, not electronics in this case :P). If you guys could just guide me on how to get firefox or any other browser to work at an adequate speed, I could spend more time looking at the tutorials on this site.

Not annoying to help newbies, but sometimes it limits the practicality of unraveling complicated problems. Reinstalls usually restore a known configuration, which at least puts everyone on the same page!

If you can get into the cmd line and do

sudo fdisk -l

(lowercase L there), that would help us somewhat.
However, as above, it sounds like your system is pretty messed up and (no offence), you being a newbie is going to make it tricky for us to help you undo that. TBH, I might do a re-install myself; depends how messed up it was.