BleepingComputer.com: "phantom" files - how do I see/remove them?

I was cleaning up my 3-year old WinXP Home computer. My anti-virus (Avast Home Ed.) trapped a Trojan as I was working so I did a "Standard Sheild" scan - I watched it scan the Documents & Settings folder where it found more than 20,000 files (6+ gbytes worth). Some of the files were called bind[1].htm and bind[2].htm - it took Avast a while to scan each one so I assume they are pretty large.

I tried to locate these folders (all had random names) and were located down in DocsandSettings>username>LocalSettings>...
...on the virus scan I could see a folder TempContent but in the above path there was only "Temp"

I "unhide" all the folders and tried to Search for them - no luck - and can't locate them manually either

I have used a number of malware scanners, anti-virus, etc. products in the past six months fighting off problems - I can't find any indication of infections yet - except for in the past few days I received Google Alerts (that I ordered) but that contained links that let to malware sites ("Your computer is infected", etc.) - it appeared tha Avast trapped them but ....

So my questions are:
How do I find and delete all of this stuff in the Documents and Settings folders? (other than cleaning up browser history, temp files...)

(Depending - I guess on the response - I might need to move these questions to the Anti-virus Forum):

Are the bind[1].html files normal or do they have anything to do with DNS poisoning exploits?

My Thunderbird mail tool was infected (? or otherwise messed up) last spring. I reinstalled a new copy (after cleaning some virus/malware out of the system). Could it be possible that some script is lurking somewhere waiting to hijack any Google Alerts that come in? (I forwarded the email Alerts to Google Security but I don't think they'll tell me anything)

I read elsewhere on this site that Registry Cleaners are not of value. I used one, called "RegCure" that I think fixed some problems for me - so I bought it and let it scan my box once a week. It invariably finds - and removes- 75 empty file/path references - could this be causing problems?

...btw, the computer runs OK and doesn't seem impaired performance-wise


Thanks for any help and info!