[Don W]

Well, I ended up biting the bullet, and took the box in for a complete reformat and new install of win XP.

I tried to reinstall from all my disks here, but was only getting a partial, so I just got frustrated and flustered.

So, now I'm all set: Win XP, Ad-Aware, and Spybot S&D all up and running well.

An interesting aside: after coming back here and following a link before installing spybot, I ended up with a couple of Alexa files.

Thanks to all for your help, and happy FReeping!.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Great news, DW. Happy computing.

[airedale]

Alexa is really common. You need to clean out the spyware, malware, etc on a weekly basis. It builds up fast. All Spybot and Ad Aware do is get rid of it.