UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE!
okay, I have cleaned my pc of all infections which were present at the time of my last post!!
as far as the programs that I didn't recognize- we have determined that they are most-likely processes of Norton.
however, my problem still occurs, and was probably not really related to my spyware infestations which were present in my machine before.
I now know that my problem is occuring because the registry keys which point to the change/remove button in the add or remove programs list have been deleted (probably by some malicious program)
So, can anyone reccomend a good registry fixing tool.
To be more specific with my problem:
when I go into regedit, I navigate to the following key:
hkey local machine
software
microsoft
windows
currentversion
uninstall
and then- none of my programs are listed there except ones which I have installed after noticing this problem (hijack this, ccleaner)
*and since I told you not to read the other posts- windows xp sp 2