This could be long... woke at 330am to flashing lights. Front porch light, fluorescent mini twin tube thing, has decided its disco time. Windows has many programs that run as 'Services' in the background. They all have Start/Stop buttons on them but pressing that Stop or Start, might make an UtOh. Some will start at boot others start only when something manually triggers it. Some of the Services are important things windows can't live without. One way to access 'Services' is the 'Computer Management' window. You should look around in there, & Manage things. Interesting place. Its Event Viewer will solve all your window problem... heh/ at least tell you the UtOh's. -- Disk Management is there, it'll help you defrag or change a drive letter. -- Device Manager is there too, look and fix hardware problems or update a driver. Computer Management window, I look in its event viewer often when problems arise, always in hope the link there that will take me directly to windows support will have the magical fix. Sometimes it does, sometimes not. ~ Yes I have installed and have used AdAware2007. Used AdAwareSE for many years and when the newer 2007 version came out I immediately started using it. I have never thought of 2007 version as much different from AdAwareSE. Just a newer version - To me its the same old thing, only it does start as a service -- and, for the Free version there's really no reason for that service to always be running in the background as the free AdAware doesn't do full time spyware protection like the paid version does. Might as well set that Service to Manual so it doesn't start up except on demand. Saves a small amount of memory by not running. If I remember right, frp, back in the day.... I dunno, a yr ago? .. AdAware said uninstall SE completely before installing 2007. Uninstall is a simple no brainer from the Add/Remove in control panel. No special considerations needed. Install of AdAware2007 is about as complicated as making sure you get the Free Version otherwise its a no brainer too. Sounds like you have been happy with SE... If I were you I'd just unistall SE (if its the Free version), and install the Free verion AdAware 2007. Leave the service running always in the background ? really doesn't use a lot of RAM/memory, but it uses some so its a coin toss whether change the service to manual or not. If you dont have another program doing full time spyware protection, you should consider finding one. My choice is Windows Defender, its free and simple. , please

Thank You Azinoh, shaboom, ravencajun, minnie and damccoy. Your information is very much appreciated. Minnie you asked me this question. not to steal the thread thirdfrt but what is your opinion on Bazooka? I've had that for centuries it seems TIA To be honest with you I am unfamiliar with the software Bazooka but, I did look it up to see what program you were talking about. I have never used Bazooka and so I am unable to give you an opinion on it. Sorry. Maybe there is someone here that is more knowledgeable about the program that can give you an opinion on it. not to steal the thread thirdfrt Minnie, I don't feel like you stole the thread at all, unfortunately I was not able to answer your question and anyone who is knowledgeable about Bazooka is more than welcome to answer your question on this thread, I don't mind at all. For those of you who mentioned Malwarebytes, Superantispyware and Spyware Blaster, I have them on this OS. I have had Spyware Blaster for quite awhile now and I downloaded the other two last year. I am very pleased with these programs and appreciate the help that was given to me so that I could download them. I use to have AdAware when it was a good program and thought I would take the chance with the current AdAware and I have become very disappointed with it. You are right it is not the same and that is why I want to remove it. I have given my son the links for the programs that you have recomended and for the removal of AdAware. It just seemed odd that we were both experiencing the same problem with our firewalls and like I said that was the only thing that we had in common on our computers. My sister and Nephew both had problems and they uninstalled AdAware and their computers started working correctly. About Irfanview, I think I will remove the old one rather than write over it and start fresh. I don't need anymore conflicts. One last thing I downloaded Auslogics and was surprised how well it did. My computer was really starting to act up and at first I didn't think I was going to be able to run a check disk. I messed with it and finally got it to work and after I ran the check disk I used the Auslogics Disk Defrag and my computer came back to life so to speak. "Smiles" Well I think I have covered everything, again thanks to all who responded to this thread. You have been very helpful and I sure do appreciate the help. thirdfrt!!!

Ad-Aware 2007 Free is a solid post-infection tool. If you don't want to pony up the money to purchase real-time protection with Ad-Aware Plus or Pro. Just a note & not sure if it was covered don't be under the impression that the free version is going to run and protect you. You will need to run the scanner manually to benefit from it.

You might check out this page: Major Geeks recommendations. As far as I can see they are the same things that are recommended on this forum.