Sorry to hear about your computer woes. I know the feeling from when my computer fell apart last year. I guess you don't have a system restore feature? It's seems like you may have a virus or something. My problem happened when I did a 'Windows Update.' I couldn't connect to the internet at all after that. Fortunately I still had my WebTV in my bedroom so I wasn't totally cut off from the web. I hope you can get it worked out OK.

If I have a system restore feature, I sure haven't been able to find it. In addition to being a good cook and a gardener and a plumber and an electrician, my next boyfriend should also be a computer expert!

With Windows XP, I click on the 'Start' button on my desktop, then I click 'Help and Support', then I click 'Pick a Task.' Then I click on 'Undo changes to your computer with System Restore.' Then I pick a date on the little calender and the System Restore changes everything back to that date and hopefully fixes whatever the problem was. Sometimes if the computer gets too messed up, you can't even use System Restore. Is it possible for you to totally reformat your computer? I've never done that because I bought this computer used and I don't have any of the software I would need to start all over, but  if you have all the software I think its possible to reformat, (or whatever it's called) and maybe that would get things working again. I have no idea how that's done, I have a feeling it's probably pretty complicated.

Thanks so much for your help! I'm afraid my version of Windows doesn't have system restore. And from what I've been reading, getting rid of this imbedded advertising won't be nearly that simple. Apparently even people with ad-blockers and virus protection software have had their computers screwed up by these "topantispyware" people. The solution involves finding and deleting a bunch of hidden files, rebooting in safe mode and doing a bunch more things. I don't know if I'll be able to do it or not. But for now, I've found a way to get my desktop to load and now have been consistantly able get things up and running normally with just the imbedded advertising, which I think is not dangerous...just extremely annoying. And I still don't know if the two problems (windows not loading properly and this advertising infestation) are related to each other or just happen to start within 24 hours of each other. I got this computer used for $75, so I don't think reformatting is an option. And since it was so cheap and has been giving me a few odd error messages over the past several months, I don't think I want to put a lot of effort and money into fixing these problems. But I also don't want to go right out and spend several hundred dollars for a new computer if this can be fixed fairly easily.