it would be best if you do this while offline...i.e. physically disconnected from the internet..

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So Long and Thanks for All the Files
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Beware of the big 3 insurance companies in Texas! Read your policies carefully (maybe you'll need a lawyer) Allstate, Farmers & State Farm are overextended and their 'coverage' is worthless...a true waste of your money Read This

Well, killing all of my system processes didn't seem to fix the problem. Just out of curiosity, I tried compressing the offending file using Winrar...that worked and created a compressed copy in the same folder the file exists. I was able to delete the .rar file, but still couldn't do anything with the original. One thing I've noted is that whenever I try to run one of the various cleaners/deleters/unlockers on this file, the program ends up "Not responding". How would a file be able to have that affect on so many different types of programs?

because its obviously malware, and you have been jacked IMHO....

have you tried running HiJack this and reviewing the log?

if you run the program and copy and paste the log file here I'll give it a shot...if I can't figure it out I'll direct you to a place that can and will most likely figure it out...just don't mention anything about LW there...

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So Long and Thanks for All the Files
_____________________________________________

Beware of the big 3 insurance companies in Texas! Read your policies carefully (maybe you'll need a lawyer) Allstate, Farmers & State Farm are overextended and their 'coverage' is worthless...a true waste of your money Read This

SUCCESS!!! The only way, and I do mean the ONLY way I could nuke this ******* was to boot from my VISTA DVD, go to the repair option, open a command prompt, and delete the documents folder under my User profile. The download file finally shows empty...what a relief. I just hope there are no remnants left anywhere on my machine. I'll scan with every program I can think of, but I've done that while the file was there, and it didn't show any infections. One of the things I ended up doing in my quest to fix this headache was to enter a line under the command prompt that created a separate administrator logon on the opening screen. Anyone know how I can get rid of that so that the system boots directly into my profile? Thanks for everyone's suggestions. I really appreciate all the responses.