In the future, if you want to see what programs and dll's are loaded at startup, try the link below:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

I have used this a number of times to get rid of crap on clients' machines, and is much safer than HijackThis, because you can uncheck an item, loaded by the registry, instead of just deleting the key (you can check without deleting.)

MBR things won't be noticed, as this is no scanner, but they can be addressed easily from Windows itself (when booting clean.)

Thanks! I was quite shocked that apparantly the solution to my problem was (at least superficially) a mischievous rogue program that's easily found in ProgramData and the startup tab and looking quite suspicious even to the ignorant eye, while neither AntiVir nor AVG nor Spybot nor Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware took notice of it. (The Eset online scanner found a couple of supposed trojans later on, but they didn't seem directly related to my obvious issues; in any case provided they were not false alerts, they weren't detected by the other either)

but you just got antivirus scanners?
thats what just regular anti virus programs are bad at. you need a internet security suite that stops bad stuff before it even gets on your computer.

Yeah, actually I just got the Windows Firewall, Windows Defender and Antivir. :/

ooooh shame on you :p

i have very good experience with kaspersky (very cheap on amazon) and using eset security suite now which prevented installing malware several times now.
really it will save you alot of headache ;)

ESET is a good company, I'd trust that what they find exists and get rid of it (unless an obvious joke exe you have had for years.) Sometimes joke 'viagra cursors' and the like are identified as trojans, but aren't :-)

In any event, seems like you have this solved, best of luck, and will see you around!

Just hearing you got it sorted is good enough for me!

Glad to hear you got it sorted out, if you decide to reinstall windows and need assistance, post in the forums and you'll have all the assistance you desire (and probably even more :P).
As for the offer, I may contact you on the next Gem Promo (should be the 6th of June), but I'll probably already have it. No worries though, and thank you for the offer.

Sure, no problem. I can't promise I will be around that day and notice it in time, if it's something you would like, but if I do, I'll gladly gift it to you. Or anything else you like, as it was mostly your advice that put me on the right track. :)
Yeah, I guess this is the wrong end to save money on, even for such as poor cheapskate as I am. ;)

I'll think of getting a commercial security solution, if they're really that safer.

Good to hear you solved your problem and it ended in a happy end ;-) Also thanks for the offer.

You still can improve your safety without spending much money. I would move from Avira Antivir to Microsoft Security Essentials or Avast. When in my clique a computer was infected most time Avira was used and few weeks ago an update paralyzed windows, that's why I would not recommend it. With Avasts update to version 7 I had some problems running some of my freeware tools (Avast was very restrictive), but maybe they fixed it and you want to try it.If you use Firefox you maybe want to install some helpful add-ons like NoScript, WOT and Adblock. Noscript disabled all scripts, only from you allowed pages can run scripts like javascript, flash, etc. WOT warns you if you went to an unsafe page (based on community votings) and adblock blocks advertisement. Also keep all your software ( especially Windows, Browser, Virus-Scanner, Java, PDF-Reader, Flash) up to date.

Thanks for the offer, but I'll pass. I don't play too many adventure games and I already got everything I wanted from the weekend promo.

Good to hear you got rid of the problem.

I'm with you on that, unless of course the OP can figure out a way of getting me the time and stamina to play through my backlog. Which is presently over a hundred games. :-P

wasnt feeling that until you said so :p

2TT88-YITFE-AGYTM

Take that steam code :-P