Can't answer the paid vs free question, but hubby swears by AVG and its virtues. Claims that it catches more items and does not slow down the system. So I paid for the full version - just have to run the *exe files once they send me the activiation code. He uses the free version and has been pleased with it. Lynne

Bunky, many people have been in the same situation. Downloading a malware scanning program sounds like a great idea until you loose internet access on the computer. I would try to download some anti-virus and malware scanning software from another computer and transfering it to your system with a flash drive or CD-R disc. I would also try to borrow a Windows XP Professional installation disc from a friend or relative. It will allow you to run commands from the Recovery Console and may accept your product key if you have to reinstall. I just purchased a new laptop and one of the priorities in my selection was a reinstallation DVD for the operating system. Many systems include a recovery partition, but an OS disc is a necessity when it comes to hard drive crashes and some malware infections.

After you have run AVast and let it do it's thing please go and get malwarebytes antimalware and follow these direction. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware Please download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware to your desktop. * Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program. * At the end, be sure a checkmark is placed next to Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, then click Finish. * If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version. * Once the program has loaded, select Perform full scan, then click Scan. * When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results. * Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected. * When completed, a log will open in Notepad. Please save it to a convenient location. The log can also be found here: C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Malwarebytes\Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware\Logs\log-date.txt * Please post contents of that file in your next reply. Then we can tell what next.

aswMBR version 0.9.4 Copyright(c) 2011 AVAST Software Run date: 2011-03-26 16:16:43 ----------------------------- 16:16:43.484 OS Version: Windows 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 16:16:43.484 Number of processors: 2 586 0x170A 16:16:43.484 ComputerName: UserName: lov 16:16:44.390 Initialize success 16:16:57.531 Disk 0 (boot) \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 -> \Device\Ide\iaStor0 16:16:57.531 Disk 0 Vendor: WDC_WD25 11.0 Size: 238475MB BusType: 3 16:16:57.531 Device \Device\Ide\IAAStorageDevice-1 -> \??\IDE#DiskWDC_WD2500BEVT-75ZCT2___________________11.01A11#4&3c2934d&0amp;0.0.0#(53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b) not found 16:16:57.562 Disk 0 MBR read successfully 16:16:57.562 Disk 0 MBR scan 16:16:57.578 Disk 0 TDL4@MBR code has been found 16:16:57.578 Disk 0 MBR hidden 16:16:57.578 Disk 0 MBR [TDL4] **ROOTKIT** 16:16:57.578 Disk 0 trace - called modules: 16:16:57.578 ntkrnlpa.exe CLASSPNP.SYS disk.sys >>UNKNOWN [0x8ae1f439]16:16:57.578 1 nt!IofCallDriver -> \Device\Harddisk0\DR0[0x8adb0ab8] 16:16:57.578 3 CLASSPNP.SYS[ba0e8fd7] -> nt!IofCallDriver -> [0x8adff4b8] 16:16:57.578 \Driver\iaStor[0x8adae458] -> IRP_MJ_CREATE -> 0x8ae1f439 16:16:57.578 Scan finished successfully That's a special tool from avast called aswMBR.exe as shown above and it finds it as shown. Another tool will be employed to remove it such as TDSS Killer.