Ick.

The first thing I'd do is bring it up in safe mode and disable all the weird start up items. I like the windows startup online repository for finding what should and should not be in the startup.

Also, right click Internet Explorer, select properites, and return everything to the defaults on all the tabs, and delete all offline content.

Still while in safe mode, flush the temp folder (c:\windows\temp) and empty the trash.

Restart, make sure all the windows updates are done. Install and update spybot (ver 1.3 currently I think), immunize and install the tea timer resident piece (under spybot's advanced mode).

Then the real fun starts: I google all the odd, recent exe and dll files and folders in:

C:\
c:\program files
c:\program files\common files
c:\windows
c:\windows\system(32)

and delete like mad and cross my fingers. I go back into the msconfig startup to see what's been put back - resident programs will put entries back as fast as you remove them. The tea timer piece will try to intercept them.

About 3/4 of the time this works.

Good luck!

-jk