Yes, I am actually a programmer and use cygwin to get a unix-like environment on my windows pc, and I use vim as my editor. I wasn’t aware that it is running at all times, though.
A couple of questions if you don’t mind:

  1. Is there anything that would cause me to get that “modification of system code” BSoD other than malware? Could it have come from another source?
  2. Do you have any more information about/theories on those hexadecimal filenames? They’re still getting generated periodically.
  3. So, about the black screen I’ve mentioned that my computer hangs on for a while in between logging in and seeing my desktop. It seems that this only happens when networking is turned off. When networking is on, I either don’t hit this screen at all or the hang time is much, much shorter. Any thoughts on this?