thanks. I think I am almost back up and running. Now that I've "freshened up" my laptop with a full format, I may go off and do the same thing to my old XP desktop that has a very full hard drive.
With spyware programs like you listed, do I have them all on and active? do they run in the background or do I need to get back into the habit of just running them weekly?
I have Windows Defender on and running. Is there a way to settle User Account Control down so it isn't popping up every time I make a change?