Yeah, I guess so. My husband was in charge of all that stuff. Okay, good news bad news. Did the malware download and scanned, found 2 bad things and killed them. Bad news is IE will still not open normally. Here's the malware report: Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.34 Database version: 1809 Windows 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 2/27/2009 11:51:57 AM mbam-log-2009-02-27 (11-51-57).txt Scan type: Full Scan (C:\:) Objects scanned: 163511 Time elapsed: 1 hour(s), 11 minute(s), 47 second(s) Memory Processes Infected: 0 Memory Modules Infected: 0 Registry Keys Infected: 1 Registry Values Infected: 0 Registry Data Items Infected: 0 Folders Infected: 0 Files Infected: 1 Memory Processes Infected: (No malicious items detected) Memory Modules Infected: (No malicious items detected) Registry Keys Infected: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Stats\(b64f4a7c-97c9-11da-8bde-f66bad1e3f3a) (Rogue.WinAntivirus) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully. Registry Values Infected: (No malicious items detected) Registry Data Items Infected: (No malicious items detected) Folders Infected: (No malicious items detected) Files Infected: C:\WINDOWS\hosts (Trojan.Agent) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully. So, what do you suggest I do next? Download Firefox, copy my favorite sites and delete IE?

Charlene any time you are going to get things like your fonts or any other downloads like that make it a habit to always before you open the file on your pc, immediately after you download it just go to that file and right click and choose to scan it with your antivirus program then make sure your malwarebytes is updated and do the right click scan and use malwarebytes too, if you do this you will prevent opening a potential infected file to your pc. Keeping malwarebytes updated is essential so that when you do a right click scan it has all the latest definitions, your antivirus program gets them automatically but with malwarbytes you have to open the program and hit update. Also running malwarebytes at least once a week, fully updated and full scan is a very good habit to get into. and we have to all remember when something is offered to us free sometimes there is a reason and it comes with a nasty little bonus unfortunately they love to add those to stuff like wallpaper, fonts, smilies, all the nice fun stuff. I would definitely never get anything from the site you got those from they are not a trust worthy site. Are you using WOT on your pc? Free Internet Security WOT Web of Trust

Thanks for your quick response, please bear with me I don't know much about computers (completely self taught, I learn a lot here reading the posts but learning and using are very different.......I'm a newbie.) From trying to research the error I did find out (as you said) that it was related to the ATI Catalyst Driver-Video Card but when I tried to find driver updates at the ATI site I couldn't find the "Radeon Xpress 1100" I'm not playing games when the error occurs. The ati2mtag error comes up several times just from starting the computer.........prior to doing anything except opening System Info. to view the error log. I tried following your first set of instructions - going to Device Manager, Under System devices these controllers were listed: Direct memory access controller Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Embedded Controller Programmable interrupt controller + Universal Serial Bus Controllers .Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller .Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller .Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller in that same section there are 6 entries for PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge I was planning to post back here to find out which of those I was supposed to select but before doing that I made a mistake oops.......right-moused on Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Embedded Controller..followed your steps but when I clicked next (expecting to find a box in which to choose the PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge) there was no next, a download started.........in seconds the "Completing the Hardware Update Wizard" box came up saying "The wizard has finished installing the software for: Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Embedded Controller....The hardware you installed will not work until you restart your computer. Click finish to close the wizard. (no other choices) Restarted computer.....got a new error Source - Service Control Manager Description - The Rogers Update Manager service hung on starting. * I don't think that's a problem but I am concerned about having installed unknown hardware. I've no idea what I've just done or downloaded for that matter. In the vain hope of reversing what I'd done I Tried to do a System Restore.(thinking that would take care of my oops)....it looked like it was doing it, restarted and came up with "Could not restore to system checkpoint....no changes have been made" (System Restore has never worked for me in the past either) I have Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 1 Help, please!!!

zephyrgal- Sorry to hear about that. That's a very unusual occurrence. I'm not saying that Avast couldn't have caused your problem, but I have installed it on all of my computers and those of several friends and never had any problem. I agree with azinoh that this issue could have been due to MSE running at the same time. However, I also have to ask: have you ever had any other antivirus installed on this computer, like Norton/Symantec or McAfee? In my experience, both of those antivirus products tend to leave things behind when they are uninstalled and require the use of special uninstallers in order to get them completely removed. I just got a new laptop that came with a free trial of McAfee installed on it. The first thing I did was uninstall it via the Windows Control Panel, and then I went to the McAfee web site and downloaded their Product Removal Tool, and ran that. Once I was sure it was gone, I installed Avast.