History:
First: lost all home network connections
Second: stange things started happening including *.exe Bad Image messages so I ran Avast and Adaware but couldn't remove all malware (surfsidekick and altnet primarily)
Third: Purchased McAfee Internet Security Suite 7; installed, cleaned system
Fourth: Purchased Spydoctor; installed and cleaned system
Fifth: Downloaded and ran Adaware SE; cleaned system
Sixth: Dowloaded Service Pack 1a
Seventh: Could only open IE occassionally and Firefox more often
Eighth: With help of techguy.org ran Hijackthis; WINPFIND; Killbox; AVG Anti-spyware; Downloaded current Java and more
Ninth: [/color]When I click on the IE icon or try to open through programs, the computer makes noises, it sounds like it's running, the hourglass starts turning, then disappears and reappears and then disappears all together and the computer gets quiet again. When I control-alt-delete to taskmanager, iexporer.exe is showing in processes with about 37,000 kb so it looks like it's running. When I shut the computer down END PROGRAM-IEXPLORE.exe appears for each time I tried to open it. I have to end program manually for each popup before the computer shuts down.
Tenth: I've been able to get online with Firefox, although about 25% of the time, it won't open either and I have to reboot the computer and try again.

Any ideas? I think Techguy is out of them.