Hi folks -- newbie here, first post. I registered specifically to post about this issue.

This morning my ISP notified me that my computer has been sending out spam and that it apparently has a virus. I have McAfee products, and was advised to update my VirusScan and that AdAware SE is incompatible with McAfee products. That didn't make sense to me, since I've been running AdAware SE and McAfee's products together for awhile with no apparent problems, so I came to the forum to check out whether people here thought there was a genuine incompatibility. (As a rule, I trust the advice of people who distribute/use freeware far more than that of people who represent large corporations.)

I read the thread that indicated that AdAware 2007 is compatible with McAfee products. Since I haven't upgraded to 2007 yet, I figured that I'd just uninstall SE, upgrade my McAfee software, and then install AdAware 2007 once I'm finished with the McAfee upgrade. (If that's a bad plan of action, I'd appreciate it if someone would tell me.) Then I checked out the Forum section headed "HELP! My computer is infected! What should I do?" And that's where my problem arose: I cannot for the life of me figure out what the "instructions" in that section mean. There appears to be a significant step missing in the instructions: the step between "My computer is infected" and the advice in the section.

I have no idea what a HijackThis log is or whether and how I should upload a file. I've read all the "Read this before posting" messages I could find, and none of them were helpful. I also read a number of posts from forumites with problems. The responses to those posts inevitably linked to the "HijackLogs" section, which is Greek to me. I tried to find the Step-by-Step Instructions, but am not even sure that I've read the correct message, much less understood it.

I need instructions at a "For Dummies" level. It would be great if someone could help me as an individual, but it would be even greater if TPTB on this forum could supply the missing step, so that other newbie dummies like me won't have to search for the same information.

Thanks to all of you for what you do.